


Stone Cold

by we_are_just_bad_code



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alex's POV, Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Angst with a Happy Ending, Assassins AU, F/F, I really wasn't expecting this to become so slow, Minor Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor, Slow Burn, assassin!Alex, assassin!lena, but I do love torturing myself, maggie and supergirl are friends because why not, previous alex x lena
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-09-11 00:05:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 49,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8944735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/we_are_just_bad_code/pseuds/we_are_just_bad_code
Summary: All her client had given her was a piece of paper with her target’s address and their name on it. "Detective Sawyer", Alex recalled.Or the one where Alex is supergay and ends up falling for the woman she's supposed  to kill: Sanvers assassins AU.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this chapter is mainly just exposition but things will soon develop

Climbing the fire escape stairs that lead to the top of a building somewhere in National City, Alex noticed how bright the moon was that night. The white orb casted the only light she needed to guide herself in the dark, glowing intensely against the black sky.

Moving as silently as possible in the shadows, Alex made her way through the gravel covered rooftop, glad her time working out was showing its results. Carrying a sniper rifle’s case while going up a twenty storeys high building was not as easy of a task as she once thought, but that night her breath was only slightly heavier than usual.

The late fall wind rushed through Alex’s hair as she focused on slowing down her heart rate. The air was cold enough that she could see her breath forming small clouds of steam in it, which caused her to wish she had worn something warmer than a leather jacket.

_Let’s just get this over with_ , Alex thought, ignoring the shiver than ran from the small of her back to her neck. All her client had given her was a piece of paper with her target’s address and their name on it. _Detective Sawyer_ , Alex recalled.

Forcing herself to face the cold midnight air, the assassin removed her gloves in order to assemble the rifle that would put a bullet in a cop’s chest and earn her a 2 million dollars pay check.

Alex’s skilled, scarred hands worked quickly on the weapon, putting it together piece by piece until she could no longer put off looking through its scope to check on whether her target was home or not.

Before bothering to learn the law enforcer’s full name, Alex had thought her target was nothing but a dirty male police officer who had tried to steal from the mob or got himself involved with the wrong people. As it turned out, her target was a very successful woman with her whole life ahead of her and so Alex couldn’t help but want to delay the assassination.

As her cold fingers came to rest near the trigger, Alex adjusted her scope to the window of the building in front of her, in which Maggie Sawyer lived. Her client had asked for nothing more than a clean hit that didn’t lead back to them and Alex hadn’t thought twice about taking the job as it appeared to be the easiest she had in a while.

Observing the woman casually taking a sip from her beer dressed in nothing but an oversized sweater made Alex think maybe it wasn’t going to be that easy after all. Momentarily stunned by the detective’s beauty, Alex all but forgot she was about to shoot a bullet into her heart.

She had known, from the minute she climbed to that rooftop, that night’s job was different. She just hadn’t realised it felt that way because she was forcing herself to go through with it, putting her feelings aside.

Alex took a deep breath as she remembered that one time she didn’t end her target’s life and, instead, gave her a new identity and a clear warning to never come back to National City. It had been wrong, she knew that now. But that still didn’t mean she was going to take someone’s life when they deserved better.

_Maybe Lena was right_ , Alex found herself thinking as she fidgeted in getting her magazine from her case and latching it into the rifle, _maybe I am going soft_.

Her mentor was the only one who knew about Alex saving one of her targets. Even though Lena didn’t disapprove of her student’s actions, she didn’t follow them either, making it a point to remember Alex of how stupid they were every time they saw each other with a line similar to “You’ll get in trouble for that one day.”

However, lately, Alex prided herself in only killing people who had it coming either way. The list of those people didn’t include beautiful NCPD detectives with shiny, warm brown eyes like the one she saw through the scope of her rifle that night, though.

Alex was relieved to see another woman come into her line of sight, joining her target on the couch and unquestionably delaying the assassination. “Clean hit” meant no witnesses and so Alex released a breath she didn’t realise she had been holding and moved her finger away from the trigger.

The scene in front of her suddenly became inappropriate as the new woman straddled Alex’s target and kissed her passionately.

Deciding to put off the killing for the time being, the assassin looked away from her scope, determined on keeping an eye on her target but, maybe, not so closely.

 It wasn’t the first time Alex was forced to assist to similar doings due to the demands of her job. Nevertheless, watching Detective Sawyer run her hands through a woman’s body made Alex uncomfortable. She blamed her mouth getting dry and her heart rate rising in the fact that her target’s actions reminded her of how warm Lena’s bed had been only two hours ago.

Alex looked up at the sky and focused on the stars she so much liked to observe. The way they shone, along with the moon, soothed the assassin, giving her the will needed to push the memory of her trainer hovering bare, above her, to the back of her mind.

_Focus_ , Alex told herself. She needed to decide how to proceed with her current target.

With the stars shining over her head, Alex couldn’t help but wonder if she couldn’t have a better life, one that didn’t involve having to kill a marvellous detective, who, apparently, had someone to go home to.

She usually told herself her job wasn’t that bad. After all, killing a couple of criminals for other criminals wasn’t that harmful and the money made it worth it.

Still, Alex found herself thinking her job turned her into a bad sister and an even worse daughter. Her heart clenched at the idea of her father condemning her activities or even hating her for them.

Maybe she was getting soft after all.

Although, Lena didn’t really have the right to judge her for it. Last Alex heard, after almost being caught by Supergirl during one of her murders, Lena didn’t do much more than miss her shot when trying to put the kryptonian down.

Remembering that lead Alex to smile slightly before packing up her rifle. She really didn’t want to have to kill her best friend – or whatever Lena was - for hurting her little sister.

Checking on her target one last time before leaving, Alex caught a glimpse of soft, brown hair and toned legs. Her target really was stunning.

***

After a good night of sleep, Alex found the fact she honestly didn’t want to pull the trigger the night before unsettling. When had she become concerned with the moral implications of her job?

Nevertheless, she had time to decide what to do with the detective. According to her client, Alex had the whole month to get the perfect opportunity to kill the detective due to something to do with a trial she was testifying at.

Alex wouldn’t usually care about why a certain hit was put out on someone, but this time she was curious.

A quick walk down to Sawyer’s precinct in a police uniform and a couple of attempts to find the detective’s file gave Alex all she needed to understand why someone would want to kill Maggie Sawyer.

Her file was truly _impressive_ and although Alex didn’t have time to go through it all before risking being discovered, she was astonished. Apparently her target was one of the few detectives who showed interest in investigating alien related cases and her number of solved ones was remarkable.

The assassin found her eyes drifting to her target’s picture on the file, but before she could dwell on the reason behind her odd impulse, the detective herself walked into the precinct, forcing Alex to hide the file under her jacket and cautiously make her way to the entrance.

Despite her best efforts to blend in, Alex found her target’s gazed locked on her. For a brief second, she allowed herself to look at the depth of the detective’s eyes and couldn’t help but think they were abysses she wouldn’t mind falling into.

The moment was over too soon, since Alex had to make her escape, which caused her to miss the detective’s smile. Nevertheless, the assassin was left with the sensation of heat creeping up her neck.

Nibbling on her lower lip, Alex pushed the door that lead to the street, taking a deep breath as cold air brushed against her warm cheeks, attempting to calm down her heart, which was suddenly beating so loudly she could hear her blood flushing through her ears.

Alex managed to push away the little voice inside her that told her to look at her target one last time, but couldn’t get rid of the thought that _damn, she’s even prettier up close_.

***

Sitting in the dark of her apartment later that day, Alex found herself nursing a glass of bourbon while going through her target’s file attentively. The more she read, the less she felt like those 2 million dollars were worth it.

However, Alex knew the rules of National City’s community of assassins. Refusing to complete a job after accepting it would take away all her credibility. Plus, even if she did refuse to kill her target, her client would merely hire someone else to do it.

Alex closed her eyes, pressing her fingers against her temples as if that would make her simply think of a solution to her problem. Not even when hired to kill a child a few years back had she given a job so much thought, so why was she so worried about the outcome of this one?

Downing the rest of her drink, the assassin revelled in the way the alcohol burned the back of her throat in the most pleasing way.

Maybe the concern Alex felt in relation to this particular hit had its roots in the fact that her target reminded her of something she could have been. After all, she did turn down a position at the DEO in order to become whatever she was now and, even though she didn’t specially regret that decision, perhaps it hadn’t been the best she’d made.

Sinking back into her couch after filling her glass once more, Alex caught herself looking at her target’s picture once again. By now, she had seen it enough times to be able to close her eyes and see the woman perfectly in her mind. The detective wasn’t smiling, since it was an official photo in uniform and all, but Alex could still distinguish the ghost of a smirk on her target’s lips.

Suddenly, an idea came to her mind; one that she knew would definitely not lead to anything good. However, before Alex could stop herself she was already dialling Lena’s private number, her lower lip caught between her teeth.

“Missing me already?” The CEO picked up. Alex could hear the smirk behind assassin’s voice.

“I need a favour, actually,” Alex replied, knowing Lena’s sigh meant she was about to show how much she disapproved of what Alex was about to ask of her. “You owe me, Lena,” the assassin said as a way to let the other woman know she hadn’t forgotten all the weapon purchases she did for her during the past years.

“So, let me get this straight,” Lena said after Alex explained what she needed her to do. “You want me to help you create a fake identity as a cop and get you to work with this Detective Sawyer?”

“Yes,” Alex confirmed, internally sighing at the disapproving tone that clouded her friend’s voice. “You don’t need to tell me it’s not a good idea.”

“May I ask why you’re doing this?” Lena asked, clearly concerned.

“I- it’s for a job, okay?”

“Alex, we murder people for a living. That doesn’t require getting close to our targets,” Lena claimed. “She is your target, right? The detective?”

“Yeah,” Alex murmured, remembering the way her target looked at her that morning. “This one is special, Lena, she deserves better.”

The assassin didn’t yet know what exactly getting close to her target would accomplish, but she told herself it would help determine the best course of action.

“Almost everyone we kill deserves better,” the CEO scoffed. “I’ll get you what you need by tomorrow night,” she continued after being silent for a while, knowing she would regret helping her trainee, but not being able to deny Alex what she wanted when her cause was noble.

She had heard of the detective from her mother and was perfectly conscious of how much she was becoming an inconvenience for Lillian Luthor’s plans to exterminate aliens on Earth. Lena wouldn’t be surprised if Alex’s client was her mother and so it wasn’t unpleasant to help Alex.

“Thank you,” Alex said before ending the call.

The assassin felt like she could breathe a little easier now that she knew what to do about her target or at least had a way to find out.

Taking her rifle out of its case, Alex noted to herself she should get more ammo. Even if she did end up sparing the detective’s life, she would still need to keep her current occupation as a killer for hire.

Alex began her daily routine of cleaning her weapons, turning on the TV as she did, as to avoid her thoughts from lingering on her previous words. _This one is special_.

The screen casted a bright light, illuminating the small apartment Alex never got to call home. Lena always asked her why she didn’t get a bigger place for herself; after all, it wasn’t like Alex didn’t have the money necessary to buy most of the things she could possibly want.

Her apartment’s walls were bare and the flat itself contained no more than a bed in the corner of the main room, a couch, a small dinner table and what was necessary to store weapons and food. Alex could see why Lena thought of her accommodations as unsatisfactory.

However, Lena didn’t know about the loose floorboard under her bed where she kept a picture of her and Kara, which had been taken before everything went to shit.

No place would ever feel like home without her little sister, no matter how much stuff she bought or where it was located. Having that picture as the only reminder of what she had with Kara made her apartment feel like any other would have. Living somewhere else wouldn’t change the fact Kara was her home.

“Breaking news!” Alex heard from the TV after finishing cleaning her rifle, bothering to look up to the bright screen.

Apparently there was an on-going hostile situation in the east part of town involving an alien gone rogue. As Alex was about to change the channel, she spotted a familiar blur of red and blue enter the scene, quickly followed by a woman in an NCPD jacket. _Detective Sawyer_ , Alex concluded after watching the scene closely for a few moments, cursing herself for using her target’s name in her thoughts.

Focused on Supergirl and her target instead of the 10 foot alien they were trying to fight, Alex frowned upon the exchanged looks between the two of them. Certainly, getting closer to her target would be harder if the detective knew her sister.

After the camera filming the scene suddenly turned dark, Alex was left staring expectantly at her TV screen like she never had before. The assassin ignored how heavy her chest felt with concern, putting aside the idea that it wasn’t Kara she was worried about – her little sister knew how to take care of herself, - but Maggie Sawyer.

Moving to her small, constricted balcony, Alex looked up at the stars for guidance. However, all she could see was a pair of brown, shiny eyes and how dark the world would be if their possessor was gone.

Alex didn’t know why this woman – this target – was affecting her so much more than the all the others she had been hired to kill in the past. Nonetheless, the assassin knew she had to get the fascinating detective out of her mind.

After hours of staring up at the sky, Alex decided it was best to go to sleep rather than overthink, only to be awakened by distressing images of a certain detective laying lifeless on the floor, her white shirt tinged with blood coming from a hole in her chest and a familiar rifle hovering over her dead body.

Getting Maggie Sawyer away from her thoughts wasn’t going to be an easy task.


	2. Chapter 2

That wasn’t the deal,” Alex sneered, crossing her arms and tightening her jaw, letting her body show the weapons dealer she wasn’t pleased with his demand for an extra 5 thousand dollars for the cases of ammo in exposition in the back of his car.

The sun was lowering itself in the sky, casting a dull light over Alex, whose eyes echoed the fire that burned within the assassin.

The previous day’s events had left her in need of some release and so, Alex couldn’t help but hope the dealer dared to defy her so that she had an excuse to get some of his blood on her hands. She looked towards the sea, searching for the tranquillity it’s freely waving water usually made her feel.

Visiting the city’s docks had become something customary for the assassin. Besides being a quiet, remote location, perfect for criminal activity, the place provided everything necessary to make the bodies of annoying arms dealers disappear.

Alex took a deep breath, turning her gaze from the beautifully painted horizon, notable due to its blend of various shades of orange and red, to the excuse of a man that stood in front of her.

“Things change. Now hand me the money before I put a bullet between those beautiful eyes,” the man demanded, motioning for the handgun tucked in the back of his pants.

Before he even got a chance to get a hold of the weapon, Alex had slammed his head on the hood of the car, causing a cracking sound to briefly fill the air. Her lips turned into a small smile as she pulled the dealer’s head back and noticed the flow of red liquid running from his nose.

“Bitch,” he had the audacity to mumble and oh, now Alex was pissed.

Holding the man by the collar of his shirt, she delivered a much deserved blow to his temple, effectively knocking him out. Alex eagerly accepted the rush of adrenaline that came from punching someone, feeling lighter than she had in days.

_Jerk_ , she thought as she dropped the dealer’s motionless body on the hard concrete before making her way to the cases of ammunition she had come to get.

Alex had made it her day’s mission to run some errands in a foolish attempt to keep herself busy and avoid thinking about the dangerous situation she was getting herself in with her current target. Detective Maggie Sawyer’s face flashed in her mind, causing her heart rate to pick up and her palms to get clammy with sweat.

Taking a last glance at the vibrant water of the docks, committing the image of blood splattered across the grey concrete to memory, Alex’s breath shook in anticipation as her short-lived adrenaline high came to an end. She was meeting Lena in half an hour.

Since when had Alex Danvers, professional assassin, been nervous to complete a task she set her mind on? Even she couldn’t answer that question as she made her way to her motorcycle. But, then again, the assassin’s current assignment was nothing like the ones she normally undertook.

Revelling in the way the late afternoon sun heated her cheeks, Alex made her best efforts to push her target away from her thoughts once more. The assassin chose the longer route to the glassy building she had become accustomed to visiting in order to clear her head. However, the feeling of freedom that came from riding a bike and having the wind brush against your neck, getting under your clothes and easing one’s mind was over too soon.

Before Alex noticed it, she was standing outside L-corp, her cheeks slightly more coloured due to the cold that was starting to affect the assassin now that the sun had disappeared behind the horizon and the moon was starting to own the sky.

Walking up to her mentor’s office undetected, Alex prepared herself for the disapproval that would be certainly clouding Lena’s green eyes. To never get personally involved with the target was rule number one on Lena’s book, after all.

“I was starting to think you wouldn’t show,” Lena said from her place by the large windows that partially covered her office’s walls, not having to turn around to recognise the quiet steps behind her as Alex’s.

“No, you weren’t,” Alex replied, knowing Lena was aware of her determination to find a way to deal with Detective Sawyer that didn’t involve killing her.

The CEO hummed in agreement and finally turned around, giving her fellow assassin the tight smile she had reserved for when Alex was about to do something stupid. She moved towards the wall opposite to her desk and unlocked her safe, pulling out a file containing what Alex could only assume was the information about her new identity.

Only then did Alex allow herself to take her former mentor in. It was one of those rare days where Lena had her hair down, cascading softly on her shoulders and cupping her face in the most appealing of ways. Alex’s eyes came to rest on the worried teeth that were biting down on the CEO’s lower lip, while her mind divagated through the tight suit Lena was wearing.

“I used your real name, seeing as officially you don’t exist,” Lena explained as she opened the file. That would be a problem in case her target knew about Supergirl’s identity, but Alex thought past that, letting her eyes run through the file.

The assassin could feel Lena’s eyes on her, watching her closely as she absorbed the details of her newly fabricated past. “Also took the liberty of pulling a few strings and get you to be your target’s partner,” Lena added, smiling more freely now.

Alex looked up from her file, her eyes reflecting how grateful she was. “This means a lot.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Lena asked, concern seeping through her voice in an alarming way. She knew Alex would be putting herself in severe danger by not killing her target and, especially, by pretending to be a cop when she knew nothing about police work other than what she watched on TV.

Maggie Sawyer appeared to be a damn competent detective and so the CEO couldn’t help but wonder if she wouldn’t see right through Alex. “I could do it for you,” she offered, in the absence of an answer, referring to the hit Alex was supposed to go through with.

“You’ve already done too much,” Alex refused, smiling softly at Lena’s kindness and shaking her head the way the CEO knew meant the matter wasn’t up for discussion. “Anyway, I should get going,” she concluded, stepping away from the other woman.

“Leaving already?” Lena asked, a new brightness coming to highlight her eyes as she closed the distance between them once more, pining Alex against her desk and causing the assassin to take in a ragged breath.

A much as Alex wouldn’t mind losing herself in Lena for a while, she had a job to complete and couldn’t stay. Before she could voice that fact, Lena’s assistant knocked lightly on the office’s door, breaking whatever spell Alex got momentarily caught in. “Reception has Kara Danvers to see you, Miss Luthor.”

Alex shot Lena a quizzical look that expressed something along the line “ _Why the hell do you know my sister?”_ , before taking a second to notice the changes in Lena’s posture , not knowing exactly what they meant.

“You need to leave, I’ll explain later,” the CEO promised, rushing Alex out the door before ordering her assistant to let reception know Kara could come up.

Frowning in confusion and worry, Alex waited in the shadows of a deserted hallway in time to see her sister nervously walking to Lena Luthor’s office, flustered and fumbling with the hems of her sweater.

Trying not to focus on the odd context in which she was closer to her sister than she had been in months, Alex concentrated on how happy Kara looked. Her heart clenched at the thought that the emotion making its home in Kara’s heart was only there because Alex wasn’t.

 

_One year ago, National City_

_Kara Danvers concerned herself with every threat present in National City, alien or human. A Supergirl, she had the duty to protect and so, upon learning about the existence of a notorious killer for hire, who the authorities had failed to apprehend, Kara had to investigate._

_No amount of useful information about said assassin was available, though, since all that was known was the individual was a pro who left nothing to trace, not even bullets, which were pulled out of the victims after their deaths. Still, Kara Zor-El didn’t believe anything to be impossible. She kept digging, searching, investigating; hoping to bring the criminal to justice._

_All she got for her efforts, however, were soul-splitting pain and heartbreak._

_Kara turned bringing in her sister for countless murder charges into her personal mission. Although, after a kryptonite bullet to the knee and several rushed conversations later, she realised she would never be able to do that for the simple fact she couldn’t bear to hurt Alex, not even when she felt like she knew nothing about her anymore._

To this day, Alex still wondered why Kara had stopped pursuing her. After all, everything they once had was gone and Supergirl was perfectly able to defeat a tall assassin with a gun. Alex had betrayed her little sister, acting against what she believed in for years, in a way she could never make up for.

Alex’s mind went back to the place where, months ago, she had last spoken to her sister. It had been raining and the dark, silent night had made it hard to see, but even then Alex had been able to notice the tears fall from Kara’s eyes as she mouthed an “ _I’m sorry”_ and left before the hero arrested her, something that would certainly lead to a death sentence.

Alex was invaded by a fresh wave of pain and agony, her heart clenching and her eyes becoming wet with unshed tears. Realising her poor life choices lead her to the point of not having the right to ask what her sister was doing in a multibillionaire company, simply because it wasn’t her place anymore, hurt more than Alex ever thought it would.

Swallowing back her feelings, Alex forced herself to control her emotions, letting the peaceful numbness that came from years of training take a hold of her mind. _You have a job to do_ , she told herself, pushing her thoughts away as she left the building, the file with her new identity weighing on her hands, burning through her as a reminder of how there were more important things to think about other than her fucked up life.

***

The alarm clock Alex barely even used beeped relentlessly, causing the assassin to jump from her bed, the knife she kept under her pillow held in the air by strong hands. That was why she hated alarms; they always managed to get her heart racing faster than it did after an hour long run.

The clock read 0 _7:00_ when Alex finally got it to stop blaring. She took the current time as a cue to get ready for the day ahead, her teeth sinking down on her lower lip as she realised there was no going back after that day.

The assassin made her best efforts to dress as cop-like as possible. The holster on her hip was something she still had to get used to, as was the weight of an extra phone on her pocket.

After taking a quick look in the mirror, Alex notices heavy bags under her eyes. The result of a restless night of sleep was evident on the assassin’s face, although it was easy to fix with the few make up supplies Alex owned.

Nodding in approval at her image in the mirror before leaving her small apartment, Alex made her way to her target’s precinct for the second time that week.

She could feel every nerve on her body.

If she hadn’t had years of practice at maintaining a neutral expression, Alex knew the tension she carried with her would be visible to anyone who saw her. Refraining herself from doing anything that would give away her nervousness, Alex walked into the place that would certainly change her life, her face mirroring nothing of what she was feeling.

“You must be Detective Danvers,” a man, who the assassin could only assume to be the Captain, greeted her with a small smile and a handshake, motioning for her to follow him into his office.

Walking by several busy desks, Alex searched the room for a face that was, by then, as familiar as her own. The assassin spotted Maggie Sawyer in the back of the room, an enormous cup of coffee placed on her desk as she went through a case file. The simple image of her target locking a loose string of hair behind her ear as she bit down on the top of her pen was enough to get Alex’s heart caught on her throat.

How could she ever hope to gain the courage to kill such a beautiful woman?

“Sawyer, come with us,” the Captain ordered, causing the woman to look up before Alex could adverted her gaze from her form.

As their eyes locked on each other, Alex suddenly became self-conscious, her cheeks heating slightly and ruining all her efforts to look like any other person in the room. It wasn’t until after her target stood up and walked towards the Captain’s office that Alex noticed she hadn’t moved since she saw the detective.

In Alex’s defence, the way Maggie Sawyer tilted her head, squinted her eyes softly and smirked at the assassin, carefully studying her, would be able to get any woman, professional killer or not, frozen on the spot.

Once inside her superior’s office, Alex had already come to the conclusion her target was different from any other cop in the building. The way she walked, unpreoccupied and bold, transmitted confidence and a certain amount of authority that Alex had never noticed on anyone else, except, maybe, Lena Luthor.

“Detective Danvers, this is Detective Maggie Sawyer. She’ll be your partner from now on,” the Captain introduced them.

Her target’s frown and crossed arms came as no surprise. After all, Alex had read the detective’s file and knew about her preference for working solo. Internally smiling, the assassin offered her hand for her target to shake, looking challengingly into her eyes. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” the detective spoke, shaking Alex’s hand with more force than strictly necessary, before grabbing what Alex identified as her own file from the Captain’s desk. “See you around, Danvers,” she nodded, giving Alex a tight, defiant smile and leaving the room.

Alex watched her target from the corner of her eye as the Captain briefed her about current cases and the science department of the NCPD’s policies. Seeing as her cover identity was holding up and everything was going according to plan, Alex allowed herself to relax into her chair, her thoughts still a mess from being two feet away from Maggie Sawyer.

She told herself her brain was still running wild 20 minutes after the encounter because she had never been that close to one of her targets before, not when they were alive anyway. Alex pushed away the little voice in her head that said her heart was still beating loudly in her chest due to the fact her target was one of the most beautiful women she ever met, even when her eyes were dull and her posture screamed defence.

Several minutes later Alex found herself sitting at the desk across from her partner’s, getting through some old case files no one was ever able to close in order to avoid looking at her target. She now had a badge and a police issued gun, which she was frowning upon for being so outdated.

“We have a body downtown,” Maggie announced after receiving a sudden phone call, pulling Alex out of her thoughts and staring amusedly at her new partner’s distaste for her firearm.

“You coming, Danvers?” the detective asked as Alex made no motion to move.

Shaking her head in order to clear her mind, Alex could swear she saw the outline of soft dimples on her partner’s cheeks. Focused solely on the other woman, the assassin failed to notice her lips turned into a smile as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and so it begins  
> thanks for reading so far, new chapters coming soon :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> since the previous chapters were all dark and angsty this one is lighter and full off Alex being super gay over Maggie

Alex thanked all the gods she didn’t believe in when the car ride to the crime scene finally came to its end. Her target had taken upon herself to drive them there, leaving Alex battling the temptation to look at her every other minute. Being that close to Maggie Sawyer made Alex feel like she was about to combust.

The detective’s sudden questions and impetuous remarks went away beyond attempts at making small talk. The assassin knew the other woman was fishing for information, certainly finding their unforeseen partnership unusual.

As her target pulled the car over by a short white building, Alex was hit with a sense of familiarity. Since Maggie hadn’t given her the address of their crime scene and the sky had gotten clouded the previous night, making it incredibly dark, Alex couldn’t be sure she was where she thought she was.

Rushing out of the car and walking side by side with the detective, the assassin mimicked her target’s actions, attempting to maintain her cover identity as a cop while she knew nothing about the job and her thoughts were running wild.

“First time in this part of the city?” Maggie questioned, noticing her partner’s eyes studying the location.

“Yeah, I just arrived a couple of days ago,” Alex answered, fishing her badge out of pocket for the perimeter officer to see in an attempt to avoid the detective’s eyes.

“So what do we have?” The detective asked the officer who verified their identities, making sure she remembered her new partner’s discomfort for a future occasion.

“Middle aged caucasian man. Two gunshot wounds, but no bullets,” he answered, causing Alex’s heart rate to pick up slightly. The assassin was sure about where she was then.

 

_10 hours ago_

_After seeing her sister at L Corp, Alex was determined on getting through that night’s job as quick as possible so she could go to her apartment and have the drink she had been needing all day._

_When had her life become that messy? How did she manage to ruin what she had with Kara? Even in her emotional state Alex knew how. Becoming a killer wasn’t exactly a goal to reach during one’s life in her sister’s mind. But that didn’t explain the situation she was in currently. It didn’t explain how Alex went from cold blood murderer to assassin with a golden heart._

_Standing outside that night’s target’s apartment, Alex waited for the guy to get home before stepping away from the shadows and getting her foot between the door and its threshold, preventing it from closing._

_Before her target had a chance to run away, Alex shot a bullet into his chest and another into his skull, the loud bang of her pistol echoing in her ears. As the blood stared staining the guy’s shirt, Alex found herself to be calmer than she had in days. The familiarity of the clean murder soothed her._

_Leaving the target’s apartment, Alex noticed several pictures of him, a woman and a young girl, yet her heart rate remained calm and her cheeks dry. Why had she felt so sick dreaming about Maggie Sawyer’s death? What did she have to make her special that this target didn’t? Unable to answer her own questions, Alex left the scene after removing her bullets from the target’s corpse._

“You alright there, Danvers?” Alex heard Maggie ask from her side, her soft voice pulling the assassin out of her thoughts.

“Just thinking about the case files I saw earlier,” she excused herself, looking her target in the eye this time. “The ones where the bullets had also been removed from the body,” she clarified, noticing Maggie’s questioning look.

“I wouldn’t lose too much time on those if I were you,” Maggie advised, entering the building. “They started when I was still a rookie and we still haven’t found a pursuable lead,” the detective scoffed, making her point, and Alex took pride in being good enough at her job that she could annoy one of NCPD’s best detectives.

“Maybe we’ll find something today,” Alex said, trying to sound hopeful while her mind was going through everything she did since stepping in that building the night before, searching for any possible mistake.

The scene remained as Alex had left it, apart from the yellow tape that crossed the door and the heavy presence of everything that came with a murder investigation, from evidence bags to the medical examiner’s equipment.

“Damn, I knew this guy,” Maggie said once she had reached the body, quickly slapping on her latex gloves and searching for the victim’s ID on his pocket. “He was one of my CI’s,” she added as an explanation, looking back at Alex.

The assassin was taken aback by the fact her target actually appeared to care about a lowlife criminal. After all, there were several tightly packed bags containing a white powder Alex could only assume to be heroine laying on the kitchen counter ahead them.

“I’ll notify his family,” Alex offered, attempting to be useful since she didn’t actually know what else she was supposed to do.

Getting up from where she had crouched down near the body, Maggie flashed Alex a grateful smile that lighted up her eyes before speaking. “I should do that. He might have died for talking to me about his friend’s less legal activities.”

“Of course,” Alex nodded, knowing that was exactly what happened. “I’ll have a look around,” she excused herself before making her way to the opposite side of the room.

Watching her target search through the victim’s phone for his wife’s number, her eyes somehow softer than usual as the bright morning light that came from the windows shined on them, Alex thought she had never seen someone as beautiful as Maggie Sawyer.

The badge the assassin felt like she didn’t deserve to possess weighed heavily on her pocket, remind her that whatever warm feeling came from watching Maggie clench her fist as she spoke, in an effort of keeping her voice neutral, would lead to something she couldn’t get involved in.

Forcing her gaze upon the lifeless cold body of her previous target, Alex couldn’t help thinking that was how someone would find Maggie Sawyer in her home, unless she soon came up with a way to make the detective disappear that didn’t involve killing.

Just as Maggie finished her call, Alex’s eyes detected a silhouette moving outside followed by the shouts of unhappy police officers. The assassin was joined by the detective on her place by the window before the deafening noise Alex knew was only caused by a gun being fired echoed in their ears, prompting them to rush out the door.

Swiftly getting their weapons out of their holsters, the pair got outside the building just in time to see a man running past them, a pistol in his hand.

Alex was by then as alert as she had ever been; her senses heighted by the sudden adrenaline discharge. However, as she ran by Maggie’s side after the perpetrator and found peace in the steady rhythm oh her heart beating against her ribcage, Alex found her gaze fixated on the detective. Everything else appeared to fade away as the assassin realised this potentially dangerous situation could end up with her new partner hurt.

The realization alone was sufficient to get Alex to run faster, leading to the distance between her and the shooter to reduce.

“NCPD! Put the gun down!” Maggie shouted from somewhere on Alex’s right.

The man must have noticed he was losing ground and became desperate since he turned around and pointed his weapon at the two women. Alex had never been as grateful for her training as she was when her quick reflexes allowed her to push Maggie out of the way before any shots were fired.

“Get behind that dumpster,” Alex encouraged the detective, her hand resting on Maggie’s arm until they were both safely hidden.

Without realising it, Alex had allowed her hand to slip towards the detective’s thigh, holding her in place as more shots echoed in the air and their ragged breath and racing heartbeat sounded in their ears.

“He’s going to need to reload soon, cover me when he does,” Maggie whispered, her expression reflection nothing but fierce determination.

Taking in a deep breath and looking into Maggie’s eyes (which the assassin found to be really pretty even as bullets were flying over their heads), Alex nodded, her grip on her gun getting tighter.

Just as Maggie predicted, the shots ceased and all that could be heard was the short _click_ of a trigger being pulled on a gun with an empty clip. The assassin and the detective rose from their place behind the green dumpster as fast as humanly possible, running towards the end of the street, their weapons held high.

Alex forced herself to stay slightly behind her partner, just in case the perpetrator had reloaded and she needed a good angle to put a bullet in his chest. The street, however, was empty and there was no sign of the guy.

“Over there, Danvers,” Maggie pointed, seeing as Alex was unsure about where exactly to expect an attack from, showing her the edge of a figure behind the next building.

Soon, the detective had reached the criminal, who apparently didn’t have any more bullets, ordering him to stop resisting arrest. As Alex expected it to happen, Maggie was forced to engage in  physical fight with the guy, leaving the assassin to stand by powerless, not being able to get a clean shot.

She was unsure of how the police proceeded in a situation like that one and did not want to blow her cover by doing the wrong thing. Nevertheless, Alex decided to intervene, as the sight of Maggie failing to block a punch and get hit right in the face gave her all the motivation she needed to throw caution to the wind.

Although, before the assassin could reach her partner, the man reached for a glass bottle on the ground and smashed it into the brick wall of the building next to them, effectively introducing a new threat to Maggie, who stood just a couple of feet away.

Once Alex reached her target and her opponent, the fight was over in a matter of seconds since the lowlife criminal’s skills didn’t manage to compare with the ones of a trained assassin. A couple of well delivered punches was all it took to get the guy in handcuffs with a massive headache.

***

“Where did you learn to fight like that, Danvers? They don’t teach you that in the academy,” Maggie asked after loading the suspect into a squad car, clearly impressed.

“Took up martial arts classes,” Alex lied, allowing herself to grin at the fact she had managed to impress Maggie Sawyer, which caused a warm feeling to settle on her chest for reasons she did not yet know.

The assassin told herself she was merely happy that the woman she was trying so hard to protect was still alive, ignoring the little voice that told her she wouldn’t mind impressing the detective more often if it meant receiving the smile she was getting then. It was a really beautiful smile, after all. The dimples on full display made Alex’s head spin in a way she didn’t know to be possible until then.

“Maybe you could teach me a move or two someday,” the detective said, getting closer to Alex.

The assassin leaned back on the car they were standing by, smirking shyly at the detective and hoping she wasn’t blushing until she noticed a smudge of red on Maggie’s fingers. “Shit, you’re bleeding,” Alex noticed, her thoughts going back to the broken bottle the perpetrator had held as she grabbed the injured hand carefully to examine it.

“Danvers, if you wanna hold my hand you just need to ask,” the detective joked, biting down the hiss that was about to escape her lips at Alex’s touch.

“If you want to skip the paramedics, I can take care of that,” the assassin offered, pointing at the nasty cut on her partner’s hand, which was still bleeding and was probably going to get infected if not treated. “I promise I know what I’m doing, Sawyer,” she added since Maggie’s eyebrows rose in suspicion.

“Alright,” the detective sighed, taking off her leather jacket and handing Alex the first aid kit she kept in her car at all times.

“It doesn’t need stitches,” Alex murmured, deeply concentrated on examining Maggie’s hand, trying her best not to hurt the other woman, which she found ironic since she was supposed to kill her.

The assassin looked up to the detective’s eyes, her breath getting stuck on her throat once she realized the woman had been smiling at her. “Take a deep breath,” she advised since she was about to disinfect the wound and it would sting.

The hiss that came from Maggie lead Alex to run the gauze she was using to clean the cut as softly as possible over the detective’s skin, having to resist the urge to caress the woman’s hand once she was done.

“You really know what you’re doing,” Maggie stated, recognizing something in Alex’s touch that went beyond the standard first aid course they went through at the academy and finding herself surprised once again by her new partner.

“I was in med school for a bit,” Alex explained, remembering the background of her cover identity. She felt bad for lying to such a wonderful woman, although she knew it was necessary.

“Seriously?”

“Yes.”

“Nerd,” Maggie chuckled, truly amused, before speaking once again when Alex was done with her bandage “We made a pretty good team, thanks for having my back.”

“It’s what partners are for, right?” The assassin smiled, not being able to keep her cheeks from heating up at the sound of Maggie’s laugh.

“Right,” the detective confirmed, thinking that maybe Alex could be the partner she never actually wanted to have, but found herself liking. “We should get back to the station, bring that guy in,” she added, nodding towards the man in the back of her squad car, who fortunately hadn’t been able to injure anyone else besides her.

“You think he was trying to steal the victim’s drug supply?” Alex asked as they walked back to the detective’s car, trying to avoid thinking of how the distraction of the shooting was coming to an end.

“Well, we won’t know for a while, since he’s not exactly talking,” Maggie chuckled, a small smile coming to rest on her lips as she looked at the back of her car where the guy had been pretty much unconscious since Alex hit him.

“He deserved it,” the assassin mumbled, well aware of how she could have easily ended his life.

The pair fell in comfortable silence after that, the drive being much shorter than Alex remembered it to be now that Maggie wasn’t giving her death glares every other minute, but, instead, warm smiles.

“We did a pretty good job today,” Maggie said once she got out of the car back at the precinct and annoyingly whispered something about the amount of paperwork they’d have to fill. “Would you like to have a drink later?”

“I-,” Alex started but couldn’t bring herself to finish. She was flattered that her target wanted to spend more time with her and couldn’t really find a reasonable excuse to deny the detective’s invitation, not when those adorable dimples were displayed on her cheeks. “We didn’t even catch the murderer.”

“Just give me your phone, Danvers,” Maggie laughed lightly at the blush that crept up her partner’s neck, saving her number on Alex’s phone once the assassin handed it to her. “I’ll text you.”

“But you don’t have my number,” Alex remarked, fascinated by the woman’s boldness, her heart beating so loudly she was afraid Maggie would hear it.

Instead of answering, the detective merely walked away towards the station, grinning, and for the second time that day, Alex found herself frozen on the spot due to Maggie Sawyer.


	4. Chapter 4

After being left standing on the sidewalk, Alex had quickly made her way inside the precinct, hoping she was able to hide from a certain detective until her cheeks didn’t make her look like she had just ran a marathon.

Luckily, as soon as the assassin stepped into her new work place, an officer informed her Maggie had left to talk to one of her CI’s, trying to get a lead on the case Alex knew the detective would never solve unless she was put behind bars.

Staring at the mount of forms she had laying on her desk, waiting to be filled, Alex finally discovered that police work wasn’t as glamorous as it seemed. If it wasn’t for the fact she was there to avoid the killing of a great detective (or for the way Maggie’s smile lighted Alex’s body on fire), the assassin was pretty sure she would have already given up on her new identity due to the paperwork.

Stealing one of her target’s case files from the woman’s desk, Alex tried to focus on how she was supposed to fill her sheets exactly (she really did have to look that up). However, she found herself dozing off, the view of her pen and papers slowly disappearing from her eyes, being replaced by the memory of a warm smile and shiny eyes.

Alex sighed. She had never fallen in love with anyone before and, although she was reluctant to admit it, the way she felt for Detective Sawyer was how she remembered Kara describing her emotions for her first high school crush. The assassin knew that whatever she was starting to feel for Maggie needed to soon be forgotten. She couldn’t care for someone like her. It was ridiculous that, even for a moment, when the sound of Maggie’s laugh filled her ears, she thought she could.

But there she found herself, contently smiling at a pile of papers because Maggie Sawyer wanted to hang out with her. Maggie. The woman she was going to kill only three days ago.

***

The next couple of hours blended together with Alex having managed to complete her paperwork. She attempted to interrogate the guy who hurt her partner that morning, but, apparently, her target had already taken care of that, visiting the man at the hospital only to confirm that Alex was right, he was trying to steal the victim’s stash of heroine after all.

As her shift came to an end, the assassin started nipping her bottom lip worriedly, wondering if Maggie had just been messing with her when she asked her out for drinks. Not so surprisingly, Alex found herself feeling disappointed at that possibility, knowing her partner did have a girlfriend she probably wanted to go home to.

When her fake identity’s phone buzzed in her pocket, Alex was barely able to keep a smile from reaching her lips. A warm sensation came to settle on her chest as the assassin read the text she had just got.

 **From Maggie S.** : _does 7 p.m. sound good?_

Alex tried to control her facial expression as not to beam over a simple text from someone who was merely a colleague. She failed.

**To Maggie S.:** _sounds great :) where should I meet you?_

She cringed at the fact she put a smiley face on her message before assuring herself it was fine, focusing on the way the detective had saved her number on Alex’s phone instead, with her first name, not her last, and without the “Detective” Alex had certainly expected to be there, keeping things formal.

The next text the assassin received included an address she had never heard of and the instruction to look up. Doing has she was told, Alex found a pair of warm eyes studying her from across the room.

 _Oh fuck_ , she thought, realizing Maggie had probably seen her smiling at her phone like a stupid teenager. Even while wearing a badge, Alex couldn’t stop herself from feeling like one when Maggie’s lips turned into a small smile.

She knew then, from the way her heart started racing just from seeing the detective, that whatever spell Maggie was casting on her had to be broken. She was there on a mission, after all. A mission that would most certainly fail if she couldn’t keep her gayness out of the way when a pretty girl smiled at her. A pretty girl that was dating someone who wasn’t a killer and was probably better than Alex could ever be. Still, the assassin couldn’t stop the shy grin that had been on her lips since that morning from appearing once again.

Maggie winked, smirking at the way she could get Detective Danvers flustered with only a text and a smile, before turning around and leaving as her shift had just ended.

Forcing herself not to look after the detective has she made her way out of the precinct, Alex decided right then and there that it was absolutely absurd to even think she was starting to feel something for someone she had known for less than 12 hours. Ignoring the small part of her that told her that it must be what people mean when they talk about love at first sight (Alex didn’t believe in such foolish things), she blamed the way she got nervous around Maggie in the fact she was, after all, supposed to kill her.

What she couldn’t deny, however, was that having Maggie Sawyer as her target didn’t offer an explanation as to why she thought she would never get tired of seeing the woman’s bright eyes or to why Alex wanted to be the cause of the smile she had grown to like so much in the past few days.

***

Leaving her apartment to meet Maggie at the bar, Alex kept finding herself smiling in anticipation at the idea of spending time with the detective. Never had the assassin been so insecure about what to wear for something that wasn’t even a date, not only because she wanted to look good, but also because she was afraid to pick something that didn’t look as the clothes her fake identity would choose.

The mix of apprehension and expectancy she was feeling in that moment was enough to lead Alex to understand why she had kept herself from working undercover all these years. Dealing with what she felt had never been her strong suit. Although the assassin became better at controlling her emotions with her training, they were still present, making it harder for Alex to ignore the moral implications of what she was getting involved in with Maggie.

Even if she could pretend the concern she felt for how the detective would come out of having a hit put out on her was strictly due to what Lena liked to call her “heart of gold”, Alex was well aware that meeting one of her targets for drinks was wrong.

The assassin had enjoyed the detective’s company immensely that day; however, that didn’t change the fact that she was using someone else’s name to get close to her. After all, Alex Danvers didn’t exist until two days ago and the only reason she came back to life was so Alex could hide the fact she was hired to kill Maggie Sawyer.

While riding her motorcycle to the address she had been given by her partner, Alex was forced to put the morality of her actions aside and focus only on the reasons they were necessary. She wasn’t about to blow her cover for overthinking.

The sky was getting dark by the time the assassin pulled over in a dark alley, her senses heighted by the idea Maggie had found out who she really was and lead her to a shady spot of town in order to arrest her. Alex quickly pushed that thought out of her mind, choosing to believe there wasn’t any way the detective suspected anything, no matter how good she was at detecting.

“Hey, Danvers. You showed up,” a voice sounded behind Alex as she took out her helmet, causing her to suddenly feel warm even though that evening was notable for its cold breeze. The assassin could hear the smile on Maggie’s voice even before she turned around to see it.

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t going to leave you here by yourself,” Alex said casually, her nose scrunching at the dark alley they were standing in the middle of. She let her eyes browse the other woman’s amused gaze before allowing her lips to turn into a small smirk.

“Worried about my safety?” Maggie’s smile grew until her dimples were on full display and if it wasn’t for feeling her knees going weak, Alex would have noticed the softness that came to cloud the detective’s eyes for having someone care about her.

“No,” the assassin scoffed, feeling her cheeks heating up as they seemed to always do when she was near the detective. “But it is my job to serve and protect,” she added as a miserable excuse.

Maggie – Alex didn’t know when she had started referring to her by her name and not simply as ‘target’ in her mind – hummed softly, agreeing to disagree, her smile never leaving her lips.

“I should warn you this isn’t the bar you’d usually go to,” Maggie said, moving towards a door on the side of a building Alex was only now noticing before murmuring  some kind of password to the individual behind the door.

Drowned in the way Maggie’s dark hair shone with the moonlight coming from above their heads before they entered the bar, Alex barely had time to prepare herself for the room filled with aliens that stood in front of her. Her body tensed immediately, but a warm hand came to rest on her wrist, keeping her from reaching for the gun tucked at the back of her jeans.

Alex’s mind was running miles per second, hardly registering Maggie’s assurance that everything was fine since the detective was by then holding her hand, squeezing it softly as if to tell her she was safe. After only letting go when she felt Alex’s body relax, Maggie went to get them some drinks, leaving the assassin missing the contact as soon as it stopped.

Time flew by as the women talked and Alex was able to find out that Maggie was, indeed, much more than a good cop with a pretty face. She was a terrible pool player that had the cutest of victory expressions when she actually managed to sink a ball; she was the person who loved dogs but had never brought herself to have one because she wouldn’t be able to leave it alone at home; she was a brave, fearless woman who dared to move out of a small town in the middle of nowhere in order to fill her dreams and succeeded; and, over all, she was the one making Alex glad to be alive during a cold night in November.

After the initial shock of being surrounded by extra-terrestrials, the assassin could see why Maggie was so fond of the place and she actually found herself feeling the happiest she had in a long time, especially due to the company.

As much has she hated admitting it, Alex hadn’t talked this long to someone except Lena in years and she had missed it. The way a conversation could just flow when clicking with someone was never something the assassin had really experienced, but now that she had she never wanted to let it go.

And Maggie with her sparkly eyes and bright smiles was so easy to talk to. She was funny, smart and even though Alex had to answer her questions with several lies or, at least, omissions of the truth, the assassin found that she had never felt so much at home like she did then. Maybe it was because she had been homeless for so long, owning apartments without any purpose other than being used to sleep, but Alex began to think that there was so much she was missing in life; there was so much she could still enjoy from being alive and wasn’t enjoying due to how she taught herself that happiness just wasn’t for her.

Sitting across from her in the booth they had picked after getting tired of playing pool, Maggie watched Alex closely, a warm smile adorning her face as her eyes searched Alex’s for the reason as to why she had been silent for the last minutes, her mind deep in her thoughts.

“You know, I think Supergirl would like you,” Maggie said after a while, snapping Alex out of her thoughts with the mention of her sister. “Maybe you should come along on the next NCPD/DEO joined operation,” she suggested, hoping to let Alex know she actually liked working with her that day.

Alex couldn’t stop her heart rate from rising at the thought of her cover being blown and her connection with Maggie ruined if Kara were to see her as Supergirl. If it wasn’t for her training at hiding her emotions and practice at keeping a neutral expression at all times, the assassin was sure Maggie would have been able to sense her discomfort just by looking at her.

“How do you know her?” Alex asked, hoping to find out what relationship the detective held with her sister and wishing Maggie didn’t know about Supergirl’s secret identity since that would certainly lead to her knowing who Alex was.

The assassin bit her lip as she waited for the other woman to reply, eagerly wanting to know how it was that they came to know each other exactly. It seemed like everyone she came in contact with knew her sister. She still had to figure out what was going on between her and Lena as her fellow assassin rarely kept secrets from Alex.

“She saved my life during a shootout once,” Maggie answered, shrugging like it wasn’t a big deal that she personally knew the city’s hero. “Before you ask, no, I don’t know who she is,” she added regarding Alex’s raised eyebrow, unknowingly causing a wave of relief to wash over her partner.

“Well, I’m glad the Girl of Steel managed to save you,” Alex said with a small smile, her chest swelling with pride at the thought of her little sister helping someone as important as Maggie Sawyer.

“What do you say about another game while you think about the offer?” The detective asked, referring to the invitation to join the next NCPD/DEO operation while motioning to the pool table with that smile that Alex swore made the room brighter.

As it turned out, Alex didn’t get a chance to think much about anything because after a couple of minutes she ended up trying to teach Maggie how to line up her shots, her body pressed against the detective’s back and her right hand softly, but firmly, holding the woman’s own in an attempt to guide her.

The proximity lighted a fire deep inside her that Alex knew wouldn’t be put out anytime soon. Maggie’s skin was smooth and touching her hand felt like something she shouldn’t do due to how intimate it was, but, at the same time, it felt just right. As her breathing became heavier from the feeling of her partner’s body against hers, time appeared to freeze and Alex could sense every little thing Maggie did, from breathing to lightly shuddering as Alex’s breath touched her neck.

However, after keeping the detective in the embrace for more than was socially acceptable, Alex was forced to let go and the moment was over too soon, leaving the assassin with a tingling sensation where her body had just touched Maggie’s. The disappoint she felt was quickly replaced by amusement as she watched the detective line up her shot as she had been taught, sinking the ball she had aimed for.

The grin Alex received from Maggie once she turned around was well worth risking the detective feeling the assassin’s heart racing against her back when they had been pressed together.

“Seems like you have to give me more lessons,” Maggie said, playfully winking at Alex.

The assassin crossed her arms over her chest and hummed thoughtfully, pretending to take the matter into consideration before speaking. “And what would that get me?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Maggie chuckled, the sound of her laugh being music to Alex’s ears and the way her eyes got shinier causing the assassin’s breath to get caught in her throat. _She’s so beautiful_ was everything Alex’s mind was able to come up with.

Suddenly, the phone she used to contact her clients beeped from her pocket, indicating she had received a text message, which was something odd as it happened rarely, the clients knowing contacting her went against their agreement.

**From Unknown Number _:_** _You have the whole month, assassin. But we’re growing impatient._

Alex felt her easy smile fall as she read the message, her whole body getting tense at the reminder that everything she had that night wasn’t hers to experience and her only job there was killing the woman that made her feel like life was worth living once again.

“Are you okay?” Maggie questioned, frowning slightly as she began to worry, noticing how hard her new found partner was grabbing the edge of the table, her knuckles turning whiter with every second she spent looking at her phone.

“Of course,” Alex nodded, presenting the detective with a small smile that didn’t really reach her eyes, hoping Maggie would let her reaction to the text slide. Thankfully, she did and soon they were back to their game of pool.

The way her heart clenched at the thought of Maggie lifeless on the floor, killed by her hand, triggered by that text, had been enough to make Alex decided right there and then that she wouldn’t be capable of killing the detective. Not when she felt herself getting lighter every time the woman smiled. Maybe she could have before she had met her and maybe Alex should have stayed away from the situation and simply put a bullet in Maggie’s beautiful brain, but standing next to her target, laughing at something she said after having a bit too much to drink, Alex knew she had to find a way to save her, like her sister had once.

Sending caution to the wind, the assassin changed her mission’s goals from ‘investigating whether Detective Sawyer was worth saving’ to ‘saving Maggie Sawyer at all costs’. She would have to come up with a plan to do just that, but, for now, she focused on exactly why she needed to change her mission’s objectives so drastically: the world was a better place with Maggie in it. Or, at least, Alex’s world was.

***

“So why did you move here?” Maggie asked a couple of games later, trying to shift the focus of the conversation from herself to Alex.

“For the job,” Alex lied, remembering her new identity’s story as she leaned against the pool table next to the detective.

For the first time in over a year, the assassin found that she wanted to tell someone the truth about the life she led. She wanted to stop lying, to stop hiding. She wanted to be honest, especially with Maggie. She didn’t want to be untruthful like she had been with Kara. Although, if something came up during their hours long conversation was that the detective was determined to find the killer for hire who had been dropping bodies all over National City and so, Alex knew Maggie would hate her if she were to reveal what she really did for a living.

Alex didn’t know at what point during her day had she starting caring about what the other woman thought of her. Although, she knew she never wanted Maggie’s eyes to fill with hatred or horror as Alex was sure they would if she found out what she did. She never wanted the detective to stop looking at her like she was in that moment: with admiration and something Alex wanted to call affection.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Maggie asked once again, since she turned to Alex with the intention of learning more about her only to find the assassin’s eyes were clouded with something she couldn’t read as they stared off into the distance.

“Yeah, I am,” Alex smiled softly at the woman beside her, because it was true, she was okay, she didn’t have someone out there who wanted to kill her, at least not as fervently as her current clients wanted Maggie dead, and she had the most beautiful and interesting person she had ever met by her side. _I’m okay_ , she thought, nodding.

And even though the situation in which they met was pretty fucked up, Alex was glad she got to meet Maggie Sawyer, because the look she was getting from the detective held everything she once wished she had.

Since that seemed like a night perfect for making harsh decisions, Alex swore to herself that she would never tell Maggie the truth about what she really was, no matter how successful the assassin was at saving her or how much she hated lying, because the way Maggie was looking at her, caring and understanding, was something she never wanted to lose.

***

Later that night, once Maggie and Alex had said their goodbyes with promises of seeing each other at work the next day, the assassin felt her phone vibrate relentlessly against her hip. Only Lena ever contacted her on that phone and even when she did, it was usually through self-deleting texts, so Alex knew the call was probably something important.

Slowing her bike to a stop on the side of the road, the assassin fished her phone out of her pocket. Lena’s codename was on the screen causing her to pick up immediately.

“Alex, I need your help.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahh so many decisions  
> also Alex is learning how to be smooth and I hope this wasn't too OOC


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: there are a lot of descriptions of blood in this chapter   
> also idk much about wounds and stuff so ignore any possible medical mistakes

“Alex, I need your help.”

Sitting on her bike on the side of the road as a cold autumn breeze swept through her hair, Alex heard the five words that got the pleasant tingling sensation she felt all over her body since saying goodbye to Maggie to disappear. It was needless to say her easy smile fell, her expression showing then nothing but concern.

“What happened? Is everything okay?” The assassin asked, sensing the uneasiness in Lena’s voice. The last time her fellow assassin had suddenly called had been months ago, when one of her targets had managed to fight back and shoot a bullet through her shoulder. Alex’s mind ran through the few scenarios in which her friend would need help. She couldn’t help but picture the worst ones.

It wasn’t until Lena explained the DEO had picked her up to have a chat about her mother, granting her unable to complete her night’s hit, that Alex allowed herself to take a deep breath, pushing away the images of the CEO bleeding to death somewhere in National City.

The assassin knew what Lena was about to ask of her even before she did so and, even though she wanted nothing more than to go to the apartment she didn’t dare call home and stay up thinking about a certain detective, Alex couldn’t say no.

Running her hand through her hair, the assassin thought about how much Lena had done for her lately; about how if it wasn’t for her friend’s resources, she wouldn’t have the perfectly crafted identity that allowed her to meet a woman with a smile brighter than the stars; about how Lena was calling her because she needed her, because she had no one else. And so, even before the woman asked if Alex would get the job done for her, the assassin said she would, no matter what it took.

Ignoring Lena’s questions of “Are you sure?” and warnings of “It evolves extremely high security”, Alex rode towards her small apartment, listening carefully to the details her fellow assassin gave her on the hit.

According to the CEO, the target had to be down by midnight, since it was a special request her clients had asked her to fulfil, which left Alex with a little over an hour to get her equipment from her place and an unmarked vehicle from her storage unit.

Pushing away past the speed limit as she rode through empty streets in National City, Alex sighed, wishing she could look up at the stars for guidance as she did that first night she saw Maggie Sawyer through the scope of the rifle that was supposed to kill her. Settling for having the wind brushing harshly against her bare hands, the assassin’s mind attempted to work its way into the peaceful numbness that usually came with the prospect of a job. It failed.

Alex would gladly help Lena at any time and that night wasn’t any different. Although, after spending hours in the presence of the pure good that was Maggie Sawyer, she couldn’t help the feeling of her chest caving in on her heart and lungs as she thought about going against everything the other woman stood for.

However, Alex’s will to complete the mission that had been handed to her never once flattered. At least, she would like to think it didn’t. To be truthful, she couldn’t really be sure since her mind was going through the cases of weapons she had, trying to determine the right one for the hit, while her heart was focused on remembering her of the way Maggie’s body felt pressed against hers, of how the woman was soft as she melt against her and she wished she had never let her go.

The cold, harsh November air forced Alex to push away any memories of how momentarily holding the detective’s hand had made her feel warmer than she had in years. After all, the assassin knew she couldn’t steal Maggie’s brightness to even out her own darkness; she knew people like her weren’t destined to feel like they found everything they could possibly want in someone’s eyes; she knew murderers didn’t deserve to feel the comforting heat that radiated from a woman’s hand, but the freezing chill that came with the wind.

***

Arriving at the address Lena had given her, Alex found herself in the outskirts of the city where trees grew high enough to stop her from seeing the front gate of her target’s mansion until she was a dozen of feet away from it. Luckily, it was dark and the assassin had been riding her bike soundlessly enough not to disturb the three guards that stood by the entrance.

From where she was hidden between the tall trees, Alex could only see four other guards checking the perimeter of the house in pairs, although she knew there were probably more on the opposite side of the residence. Lena hadn’t been kidding about the job being difficult, seeing as it was certainly going to be challenging getting in unnoticed with the moon’s glow as her only guidance.

Abandoning her bike by the side of the main road, Alex quickly walked around the mansion, trying to find a way in. Not so surprisingly, the walls that surrounded it were too high to be climbed and the assassin could find no weak spots in them that would allow her entrance.

Looking down at her wrist watch, Alex noticed she had only 15 minutes to get the hit done, which left her with no time for carefully planning a way to proceed. In the next two minutes, the assassin had climbed a tree whose branches leaned over the residence’s wall and was jumping down on a pair of guards, her hand reaching for the knife tucked in her right boot. Using the advantage of surprise, Alex swiftly knocked one the men out with a well delivered blow to his temple before noticing the other man running away.

The assassin’s heart was, by now, pumping blood to the rest of her body with its usual rapid rhythm, as her senses got heighted by the discharges of adrenaline Alex had grown to love. And so, as she saw the unscathed guard run away in the direction of the house that now stood before her, Alex couldn’t stop her training from kicking in, taking over her body and mind, causing her to throw her knife at the man’s back. The weapon hit its target with fascinating precision. Before she even realized she had harmed an innocent man, Alex knew, from the way the guard fell on the ground and the angle of the blade, that the knife had punctured the man’s lung and there was nothing she could really do for him.

Under the star filled sky, her heavy breathing sounding to loud for her own ears, Alex removed the knife from the guards back, knowing the way he gasped for air as he drowned in his own blood would stay with her for the rest of her life. Before another pair of guards appeared around the corner of mansion, Alex was already studying the best way to break the backdoor’s locks, her hands closed in fists as her thoughts lingered on how the man she killed had only been doing his job; on how, in some other universe, he could have been the detective she had grown to care about so much.

Alex hair was floating around her face due to the strong breeze when she noticed the alarm system installed on the house, a camera straightly pointed at her. She had never been so grateful for Lena’s insistence of keeping their faces covered, even during night jobs. The assassin couldn’t imagine how Maggie would react to seeing her partner’s face on the security tape of one of her murder cases and she never really wanted to.

Attempting to focus solely on the mission she had yet to complete, Alex knew she hadn’t enough time left to try to bypass the alarm system and, even if she did, it probably would end up being a waste of time, seeing as a patrol was about to find the bodies of the guards she had taken out.

Taking her handgun out of the back of her jeans, the assassin steadily used it to break the window next to the door she had noticed earlier, before carefully entering what appeared to be a kitchen. Just as she did so, an obnoxious alarm started blaring from everywhere around her and, even though Alex was usually good at keeping herself calm in tricky situations, she could feel her muscles tensing remarkably and her heart rate rising.

Knowing she had about 5 minutes before the clock hit midnight, Alex rushed out of the division she found herself in, remembering how Lena had told her the target was expected to be in his bedroom on the second floor.

Guiding herself in the enormous shadowy house, where the bright gloom casted by the moon couldn’t reach, was harder than the assassin had predicted it to be and so, two flights of stairs, four knocked out guards and a couple of shots fired later, Alex had yet to find her target.

As she swiftly opened the doors of several bedrooms, only to find them empty and dark, she felt drops of sweat running down her forehead, her ribcage aching where one of the guards had managed to land a pretty mean punch.

Spotting a dim light coming from under a door at the end of the hallway, Alex took a deep breath. Although the previous events of her day and the fight with the guards had left her tired, the adrenaline that came from knocking out four men in less than 2 minutes heighted her senses, giving her the energy necessary to raise her gun and kick down the door of her target’s bedroom.

Hearing heavy footsteps coming from the hall behind her, the assassin knew the rest of the guards were starting to catch up to her. Focusing only on the way her heart thumped against her chest, Alex looked up to the man she was supposed to kill that night, her jaw clenching at the sight of how terrified he appeared to be as he clung to the edge of his bed.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her teeth sinking down on her bottom lip before she pulled the trigger, the body of the man falling lifelessly on the bed, tinging the clean white sheets with bright red.

Clenching her jaw, Alex moved to remove the bullet from the man’s skull with her knife, burying it safely in her jacket’s pocket as her eyes stung with unshed tears. As much as she hated to admit it, Alex had thoroughly enjoyed being on the good side of things for the day and she hated to see all the effort she put in her police work that afternoon going to waste because she had to kill someone.

She didn’t know if her sudden finding of a moral compass was due to meeting Maggie, who brought out the best in her, but she was aware that she never wanted the detective to see her as she was then; as someone who shot a man in cold blood with barely a second thought.

Although Alex wasn’t sure why she cared so much about what one of her targets thought of her, she knew Maggie made her want to be better than she was then, made her want to do better. And even though Alex didn’t know if she’d succeed at that, she wanted to try. Her choice of a profession had already destroyed the most precious bond she could ever dream of having. She didn’t want whatever was being built between her and Maggie to be ruined, like her relationship with Kara had been.

Nevertheless, there she stood in front of the body of a man she had just killed, his blood staining her leather gloves as if it was showing her the darkness that lead her to even consider training with Lena would always be there to consume everything she touched.

Pushing her thoughts to the back of her mind, the assassin listened to the quiet murmurs of the guards’ voices just outside the room, which prompted her to look for a way out, finding only the window as a mean of escape. Unfortunately, the mansion was old and the window’s lock rusty, making it impossible to open.

The sound of the guards trying to push the door open gave Alex all the motivation she needed to jump out of the room’s window, causing her ears to be filled with the sound of glass shattering all around her as pieces of it scrapped against the exposed skin of her neck.

Falling from a second floor was nothing the assassin hadn’t done before. However, she could still feel panic rising in her chest as time appeared to slow down, allowing her to notice the way the ground was coming closer and closer every time she felt her heart beating.

Luckily, the bushes that surrounded the house broke her fall. Feeling the fresh wind on her face and the force of the impact vibrating through her legs lead Alex’s survival instincts to kick in, forcing her to get up from the soft grass that covered the ground and turn away from the house, whose alarm was still blaring loudly.

As soon as she stood on her own two feet and attempted to start running, the assassin felt a sharp sting on her abdomen, the pain causing her knees to buckle and hit the ground. Alex’s hand immediately found a deep gash near her side, caused by a shard of glass that was cutting her insides every time she moved.

The quantity of blood seeping through the fingers that now put pressure on the wound alarmed the assassin and she could feel nausea creeping up her stomach, followed by a gained difficulty to breathe that Alex knew to be caused by shock.

_Fuck_ , was all she could think as her pain tolerance begged to be tested by the fragment of glass piercing her abdomen.

The shouts of the guards, who had by then reached the bedroom and realized the intruder had escaped through the window, got Alex to attempt to reach the gate of the mansion, which would then probably be unguarded. Holding the piece of glass in place with shaky hands, the assassin ran as fast as she could in the shadows of the night, her respiration becoming abnormally fast and her skin clammy.

Just as she reached the gate, Alex’s legs were ready to give out under her and the amount of blood she had lost was starting to worry her, as she knew if she wasn’t able to stop the bleeding soon, the last thing she’d see would be her body in a pool of red liquid.

By the time the assassin got to her bike on the side of the road and put on her helmet, her mouth was dry and the unpleasant sound of the mansion’s alarm was drowned out by a long, plaintive wail Alex knew to be originated by police sirens. _Fuck._

Knowing she was in no conditions of hiding out between the trees and wait for the cops to leave, the assassin hoped on her unregistered motorcycle, grabbing its handles as hard as she could with her right hand, keeping her left one on her wound. Alex was well aware of the fact her efforts of not bleeding out in the middle of nowhere were showing no results, since she found herself getting dizzy and could feel the warmth of her blood reaching her pants.

Riding in the opposite direction the police appeared to be coming from, Alex broke every single speed limit she encountered as her eyelids grew heavier and the sound of the sirens got closer. _This is it_ , she thought, glad that neither her sister nor Maggie would be there to watch her get arrested or crash her bike, due to how weak she was starting to feel, before the cops even got to her.

Just as Alex’s mind brought up every single image of her little sister’s eyes and memories of a certain detective’s smile, a bridge came into her field of vision, followed by a red cape and the fluttering of blond hair the assassin immediately recognized as being Kara’s.

“Alex, stop!” Supergirl yelled and, for a moment, Alex wondered how her sister was able to identify her as she was wearing her helmet. She knew her mind was starting to get hazy if she couldn’t remember one of her sister’s powers was X-ray vision.

Looking up at the woman who Alex had been used to call her sister, as she got closer to the bridge, the assassin tried to focus on the stars that painted the sky behind Kara instead of on sadness that clouded her eyes.

Alex’s heart clenched at the possibility of having to give herself up to her sister, who she knew would never forgive her for everything she had done. And so she kept driving, wanting nothing more than to stop, but not being able to due to the need of sparing Kara the pain of arresting the person she grew up with.

Just as they started going over the bridge, Alex saw the glow of a ray of heat vision coming from Supergirl’s eyes. Suddenly, she was falling hard on the asphalt and she found herself terrified as her bike disappeared from under her and her body flew in the air before hitting the ground with a thud, the shard of glass sinking further into her flesh.

Unable to stop the yelp of pain from leaving her throat, Alex clutched at the wound, unable to move because of the fall. With her gaze meeting the moon in the dark night sky, the assassin barely noticed Kara pulling her to her feet, causing a jolt of pain to run through torso. She almost missed the worried look on her sister’s face as she caught sight of the gash on her stomach, her mind begging to shut down.

The weight of the helmet felt like too much for her neck to bear and the blue and red lights of the approaching police cars slightly blinded the assassin. As soon as the vehicles pulled over, Alex noticed a tiny silhouette coming out of one of them, her gun firmly held between her hands, pointed at Alex. The way the woman’s oversized police jacket hugged her body reminded Alex of someone, but, in her weakened state, she couldn’t quiet remember who the person was.

At least, not until she got closer to where the assassin stood, held somehow safely between her sister’s arms. Even behind the now cracked visor of her helmet, Alex would recognize those fierce pair of eyes anywhere.

_It was Maggie._

Maggie, who just a couple of hours ago had been sitting next to her, close enough that their hands had brushed against each other, sending jolts of electricity up Alex’s arm. Maggie, whose existence had been unknown to Alex until a couple of days ago, but was now considered by the assassin one of the most precious people in the world. Maggie, whose smile could outshine any star in the universe and voice sounded like the most perfect of melodies.

That Maggie was now pointing a gun at her, ordering her to surrender herself to the police, her expression hard, the brightness of her eyes that made Alex feel warm inside nowhere to be seen. And so, Alex couldn’t stop her hands from reaching behind her as she tried to find the gun that was most certainly out of bullets by then.

If it wasn’t for Supergirl’s quick reflex of turning them around and shielding the assassin with her own body, Alex would have surely died right there by Maggie’s hand, since the detective didn’t hesitate to pull the trigger at the imminence of a threat.

The momentum of the movement allowed Alex to escape her sister’s embrace, the adrenaline that was running through her veins, due to seeing her partner moments away from her identity being revealed, allowing her to have full control of her legs once more.

Quickly looking around, Alex noticed she was surrounded and her eyes started tearing up as a result of the sudden wave of panic that washed over her. She was done for good; but the least she could do was preserve the memory of Maggie warmly smiling at her at the bar earlier in her mind; not let it get corrupted by the anger and confusion she knew would be on the detective’s face once she took off the helmet that kept her face hidden.

And so Alex found herself jumping from the heights for the second time that night, silently hoping the water beneath the bridge wasn’t as far away as it seemed.

The assassin allowed herself to close her eyes as she fell towards certain death, her ears tuning out the agonizing scream that came from Kara. For a moment everything was dark and cold and Alex wasn’t sure she was still alive until her whole body ached and her lungs burned, screaming for air.

The freezing water was pushing down on her from all sides and, even though Alex struggled as much as she could to get to the surface, her body wouldn’t do what she ordered it to, being affected by the low temperature of the water and the incredible amount of blood it had lost.

While she was pushed around by the river’s current (was it a river? She wasn’t really sure), Alex’s helmet was pulled out of her head by invisible forces and the assassin finally managed to push her body in the direction she thought was up. As soon as she reached the surface, her eyes wet with tears caused either by the coldness of the air or the emotional stress she had been put through, Alex gasped for air, taking in as much as she could before being submerged once again.

Maggie’s smile flashed behind her eyes, giving Alex the strength needed to fight her way to the surface once more. As she floated further away from where she had fallen, Alex stopped hearing the voices of those above the bridge, her mind focusing only on the stars that shone against the black sky above her head.

The combination of the only thing that brought her peace, the imagine of the detective in her mind and seeing a blur of red and blue in the sky the assassin hoped to be her sister, helped clearing Alex’s thoughts, giving her the precious moment of clarity she needed ever since that piece of glass had pierced her skin.

The idea of dying under the stars, with the beautiful woman she was supposed to kill in her last thoughts, as her sister looked for her in the freezing waters, showing she did still care about her, allowed Alex to push aside the pain that appeared to radiate from everywhere.

The assassin felt her heart rate slow down as she came to accept that was it for her. Alex had always thought she’d die alone, that she’d end up bleeding out in a dark alley somewhere in National City, where the police would find her body, name her as Jane Doe and send her to the grave with no one to mourn her death.

And even though part of that was happening at the moment, Alex was still okay with the way things were ending. Was that a bad way to die with life she had leaded? She didn’t think it was. Especially not when the last person she had seen was her sister, who she loved more than anyone on the planet, after spending her whole day with the woman that made her want to change for the better.

Alex had never truly understood it when people said someone made them want to become a better person, but she did then. Too bad it was too late for her to change her ways.

As she was pushed down the river by its strong flow, Alex started losing the notion of time. Although the small, rational part of her that still wanted to fight told her she needed to get out of the water before it was, indeed, too late, the assassin let her eyelids fall over her eyes for a second, listening to the sound of the running water that surrounded her.

She was so tired, but something in the back of her mind kept telling her to open her eyes for what could be the last time. She smiled lazily at the sight of Supergirl flying back towards the bridge after looking for her for what Alex guessed was too long of a time. Kara had grown so much since she had last seen her, she’d become everything Alex could ever wish she became and even as she was slowly slipping towards unconsciousness, Alex was so proud of her little sister.

In the stars that cover the sky, Alex saw Lena and the lonely nights they spent together during and after her training, when they had no one but each other as company. In the moon that shone through the darkness of the night, the assassin saw Maggie, her flirty smiles and warm gazes. She saw the woman who she was supposed to save; the woman who would now certainly end up dead with no one to protect her from whomever it was that wanted her dead.

Just as Alex’s eyes were threatening to close themselves forever, the image of Maggie’s lifeless body lying on the floor, that had hunted her during her sleep a couple of nights ago, resurfaced in Alex’s mind. Suddenly, she was able to feel the shard of glass pressing against her flesh and her lips trembling from the cold and dying right there under the stars wasn’t okay anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sooo this was kinda cheesy and predictable but I still hope you guys liked it


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize in advange for the 4.4k words with almost no plot but hey, this will lead to great things

Knowing the low temperature of the water, although contributing to stop her from bleeding to death, was also leading her to unconsciousness, Alex fought against the river’s current, trying to swim to shore, wherever that was. While the assassin’s ears were filled with loud splashes and the sound of her heavy breathing as she did her best to stay afloat, her heart was beating at an unregularly fast rhythm since her whole body was struggling against the blood loss and the amount of water she had by then breathed in.

The shard of glass Alex had all but forgotten about from the moment she jumped off the bridge was then piercing her muscles in ways that made her to bite her tongue as not to cry out in pain. The familiar, dull ache coming from her ribs, which the assassin thought of as being broken or at least cracked, didn’t make breathing any easier than her exhausted burning arms made swimming.

Nevertheless, Alex still fought against the strong pull the water had over her, her mind no longer focused on the sky above her, but on repeating the same word over and over again, as it appeared to pull her up every time the river threatened to sink her, to give her the energy necessary to keep her eyes open even as her vision was blurry and to sleep seemed like such a better option than battling the cold.

_Maggie. Maggie. Maggie._

Alex didn’t know how it happened, but the next time she looked up from the dark watercourse that had taken her hostage, she could spot National City, its tall buildings and bright lights coming to her crippled field of vision and making it harder to see the stars, remind her of how she was so close, yet so far, from home. Not that Alex, affected by the blood loss and almost drowning in the quiet of a November night, with no one to remember her but Kara and Lena, considered the City her home. She didn’t. However, as she brushed her wet hair away from her face, in a sad attempt to gain some clarity, Alex couldn’t help but associate those tall buildings with the ones her sister flew by every night; or those bright lights with the way Maggie’s smile outshone the sun.

And even though Alex had never really had a home since she was a teenager, while she fought to swim towards a dark shadow on her right she hoped to lead to shore, the assassin found herself thinking that maybe, in a dimpled smile and a pair of sparkly eyes she had seen something that could resemble the safety and feeling of belonging that came from having of one.

Fortunately, the river’s current had pulled Alex through the water long enough that she was no longer in the outskirts of the city, but closer to its centre, near the park she used to take Kara to when they needed to talk. At that time of night, the streets were desolated and so, there was no one around to see a drenched assassin coming out of the water, crawling through the cement as her whole body shivered due to the cold air.

With the sound of her heavy breathing and hisses of pain echoing in her ears, Alex tried for the third time to get on her feet, only for her legs, which were numb and unresponding, to give out under her, leading her to ground once more. The assassin groaned when her arms broke her fall, the palms of her hands burning as they were harshly brushed against the irregular pavement.

It took every bit of the little energy she had left to crawl towards a bench and use it as support to pull herself up. Even has her mind kept running over the name of the woman that gave her the will necessary to get out of the freezing water, Alex found it impossible to walk more than two feet before she had to stop, her heart beating faster than ever.

Spotting a cab at the end of the street through her rapidly closing eyelids, Alex ordered her body herself to put one foot in front of the other, before remembering that her money, as well as everything else she had on her, was wet and useless.

Listening to nothing but the quiet voice in her mind that kept repeating the same name over and over again, Alex desperately looked for a solution, her left hand clutching her stomach where the glass had stabbed her as if to keep everything that was coming out of her on the inside, blood and tears alike.

As her head involuntarily fell back on her shoulders, Alex wished her sister was there with her, wished she could look into those peaceful blue eyes of hers and stop the panic that was now rising within her from taking over. Just as she pictured Kara hovering over her, the assassin noticed something moving on her left, causing her to turn around and seeing a middle aged man walking down the street.

Even before Alex moved behind him as silently as she could, she had already murmured _I’m sorry_ , knowing the guy had done nothing to deserve what was about to happen to him. The assassin didn’t really know how she managed to tail him for two full minutes before smashing his head against a wall as hard as possible, which considering her weaken state, wasn’t hard at all.

By the time the man’s wallet was in her hand and she had all but collapsed over him due to the effort of the aggression, Alex had already emptied the contents of her stomach on the sidewalk twice, her head throbbing, but still running over Maggie’s name again and again.

Leaning against a building’s walls for support, Alex managed to reach the cab she had spotted earlier, sighing in relief once she was inside, sheltered from the windy night’s air. After promising to pay the driver double if he sped to the opposite side of town and didn’t ask any questions, she gave him her current address, her voice hoarse and raspy, sounding foreign to her own ears.

Struggling to stay awake during the car ride, Alex asked the driver to turn on the radio in hope it would force her to open her eyes and let the memory of Maggie’s hateful gaze back on the bridge fade into the deepness of her subconscious. Even though everything hurt, Alex found herself smiling as she noticed the song playing was the same one she had heard on the detective’s squad car the day before.

Before the assassin realized it, the driver had pulled over and the cab had come to a stop. Getting up was painful, but after throwing the stolen wallet at the driver and whispering a quick _thank you_ , Alex was once again exposed to the harsh November weather, struggling to fit her key in her apartment building’s door.

Reaching her floor, the assassin had never been so grateful for the existence of elevators, as going over Maggie’s name in her mind like a mantra was losing its awakening effect and she knew she was about to pass out at any moment.

While her wet hair brushed over her eyes and her tired feet dragged her body through familiar hallways, Alex did her best not to leave bloody fingerprints on the walls she used as support. After barely making it through her apartment’s door, the assassin forced herself to shed her wet clothes and stumble into the bathroom, where she did her best to examine her wound and patch it up, the room filling itself with the sound of pained sobs and shaky intakes of breath.

From her place by the mirror, Alex didn’t recognize any signs of major organ injury and so, with trembling hands and foggy eyes, she focused on messily stitching up the gash as well as she could after removing the shard of glass, which ended up staining the floor’s white tiles with bright red.

Neglecting her bruised ribs and cut up arms, Alex covered the patched up wound with has much gauze as possible and limped over to the fridge, getting the bag of blood she kept there for emergencies and hooking herself up to it before collapsing on the bed, not even bothering to get under the covers.

In her dazed state, Alex barely noticed her new phone vibrating against the wooden bedside table, where she had left it hours ago, before leaving for the job that almost killed her. Knowing the only person who could possibly be contacting her on that phone was the woman whose name she had been mumbling for what felt like hours was the only thing that prompted the assassin to look at it.

**From Maggie S.** (00:04): _There’s a home invasion going on rn. If you’re interested in having a last bit of fun with me tonight, you should come help me with it, Danvers ;)_

**3 missed calls from Maggie S.** (00:08)

**From Maggie S.** (00:15): _This is more than trespassing, it’s possibly related to our case so pick up your phone._

**1 missed call from Maggie S.** (00:37)

**From Maggie S.** (01:43): _Where the hell are you?? I could use my partner right now._

Fighting against the tears that prickled her eyes, Alex let her phone fall from her hand into the soft cushions of her bed, unable to deal with the idea of letting Maggie down.

Suddenly, everything she had done to get from the cold water of the river into the warmth of her apartment didn’t seem to matter anymore, since even surviving to protect the detective in the future didn’t allow her to be by Maggie’s side when she needed her.

Before her mind had any more time to think about the number of missed calls on her phone or the way she had failed the woman that now meant so much to her, Alex’s weakened body finally succumbed to exhaustion and everything turned dark.

***

Alex was pulled out of unconsciousness, where everything was quiet and cold but oh so comfortable, by the feeling of something shaking her awake, the sound of her name echoing faintly in her ears.

“Alex, wake up,” she was able to hear clearly as she attempted to open her eyes, only to be blinded by the bright sunlight that came through the window, her head throbbing painfully.

The little part of her that told her she could be in danger got Alex to try to sit up and reach for the gun she kept in her nightstand. Even if her strength wasn’t close to being worthless at the moment, the strong hands that came to lie on the assassin’s shoulders, pushing her down, certainly would have stopped her from getting up.

“Don’t try to fight me, you know I’ve always liked to pin you down,” the voice sounded once more and even though Alex’s eyes remained tightly closed, she knew the woman speaking was smirking at her.

“Lena?” Alex failed to recognize her own voice as she dared to open her eyes and focus on the person hovering above her.

“I came here as soon as I heard, I was so worried Alex,” Lena confessed, her sharp green eyes focused on Alex’s dazed brown ones, reminding the assassin of the previous night, causing the image of a gun raised at her by the woman she was supposed to kill, but ended up protecting, to reappear in her mind.

“I’m fine,” she whispered, wincing as she pushed herself up the bed into a sitting position, her hands immediately going for her stomach, where the previous night’s bandages were tinged with red.

“Oh, I can see that,” Lena said, the sarcasm and anger in her voice not going unnoticed to Alex, not even in her disoriented state. “What were you thinking jumping off a bridge?” the CEO continued as she switched the then empty blood bag for an IV drip. “You could have let the police arrest you. I have lawyers that could protect you, you know that.”

Alex’s quiet sigh and following silence told Lena there was something her fellow assassin wasn’t telling her, but she chose not to push for information as she knew Alex would eventually have to talk about it.

“Your sister would never forgive me if you died,” Lena said softly, her fingers moving carefully on Alex’s bandage as she studied the messily patched up stab wound and began to clean it, earning several grunts and hisses from the assassin.

“What is it between you and my sister lately, anyway?” Alex asked, opening her eyes once more to study her friend’s expression, her voice a mix of curiosity and wariness as her tone clearly implied something like _I trust you, but_ _I’ll end you if you ever hurt her_.

“She interviewed me a couple of times for CatCO’s magazine,” Lena replied, biting her lip in a way Alex couldn’t tell was due to seeing her purple ribs or thinking about Kara. “I – We became friends, I guess,” the CEO continued with a small smile and Alex knew there was more to it than just that. However, her eyes were threatening to close themselves once more, begging for her mind to shut off, let her body rest, so she gave Lena her best “don’t dare fucking up” glare and refrained from asking questions.

If it wasn’t for the pain that came with being stabbed by a shard of glass and falling down a 150 feet tall bridge, Alex would have surely passed down while Lena’s skilled wands worked on preventing an infection. Looking at the alarm clock on her bedside table, the assassin was glad she hadn’t slipped into the peace and comfort sleep would bring her, since it read _8:32_ , indicating she should have been at the precinct over half an hour ago.

“I have to go,” Alex said, her head spinning once she attempted to get of the bed and stand up, her thoughts going back to Maggie, who just the previous day had made the assassin feel so warm inside, she honestly thought something she was wearing  was on fire; Maggie, who was so smart, tough and beautiful that she got Alex thinking the world wasn’t that bad of a place after all; Maggie, whose smile made Alex feel like maybe she would be okay; Maggie, who had probably been up all night investigating the crimes Alex had committed, exhausting every lead and witness alone, because her partner wasn’t there with her; Maggie, who was probably buried in work, wondering where the hell the person who was supposed to have her back had disappeared to.

“Alex, you can’t even walk,” Lena scolded her, confusion and disbelief clear on her face, as her arm held Alex’s waist closely, preventing her from falling. The assassin chose to ignore the “ _what are you not telling me”_ that was implicit on her friend’s eyes, slowly putting one foot in front of the other until she reached the bathroom instead of dealing with Lena’s inquisitive gaze.

“I have to go to work,” the assassin explained, frowning at her image in the mirror.

Her face was covered in cuts that, unlike the ones on her arms, would be easily hidden by carefully applied make-up. Meanwhile, her hair was dishevelled and most of her skin was painted with her own blood. Alex’s only hope was that the way her eyes looked dull could be explained by the bags underneath them and how her body appeared to have been through hell could be masked by a shower and a long sleeved shirt.

Alex attentively watched Lena’s face as realization hit her, popping a couple of painkillers on the palm of her hand before pushing them down her sore throat with the help of a glass of water.

“This is about the detective,” Lena stated, her sharp intake of breath visible in the tension that suddenly took a hold of her neck’s muscles. Alex’s heart clenched, whether at the disapproval in her friend’s voice or at the thought of failing Maggie the previous night she didn’t know. “She’ll be fine without you by her side for a day, Alex.”

“I know that, I just-” Alex trailed off, running her fingers through her hair, not knowing how to tell the woman who taught her how to kill that Maggie Sawyer was someone she wanted by her side at all times, someone she genuinely cared about and didn’t want to disappoint.

“You just jumped of a bridge so she wouldn’t find out who you are,” Lena finished Alex’s sentence, crossing her arms over her chest as her fellow assassin nodded slightly, eyes embarrassingly fixated on the floor, sighing. “She’s just another target, Alex. What were you thinking?”

_No, she’s not_ , _she’s so much more,_ Alex thought, wishing she could tell Lena just that, wishing she could explain how Maggie made her want to be better; how no matter the years she had spent shooting bullets into people’s chests, she could never even imagine doing the same to the detective.

“I don’t wanna do this anymore,” Alex mumbled, leaning against the wall, hoping Lena knew what she meant: the killing, the constant worrying about being discovered, the lying to those closest to you.

As tears threatened to cloud her eyes, the assassin looked up, hoping to avoid them falling and noticing, for the first time that day, that it hurt to breathe not only due to her broken ribs, but also due to just how tired she was of dealing with everything her job involved.

“This one really got to you, didn’t she?” the CEO asked, her eyes turning softer at the sight of Alex’s teeth nibbling on her bottom lip, her hands trembling from something Lena knew wasn’t the cold.

As Alex was carefully pulled into the warmth of Lena’s arms, her hands grasping her friend’s shirt in an attempt of finding something to keep her knees from buckling underneath her, she heard soft whispers of “You’re going to be okay” and “I’m here for anything you need”. As much as she hated to admit it, Alex wished those reassurances to come from someone else, from someone with a dimpled smile and beautiful brown hair, from someone who was probably trying to put her behind bars in that exact moment.

***

Walking down to the precinct an hour later, mastering the art of not appearing to have been stabbed 9 hours earlier and enjoying the slight high the painkillers gave her, the first thing Alex noticed was how there was something different about the atmosphere of station, followed by the recognition of a change in the board that stood behind Maggie’s desk.

While it had been empty just the previous day, the white board held then a series of pictures Alex knew to be as familiar as the messy handwriting in which their captions were written. It was only once the assassin’s eyes went over the photo of a black bike, frontal tire and license plate missing, laying on the asphalt, that she was able to identify the board as the main gathering of evidence against the killer NCPD was chasing last night, against her.

“Where the hell were you?” A voice that had by then became one of Alex’s favourites sounded behind her, tainted with a certain sternness the assassin couldn’t help but think didn’t belong there.

Turning away from the board in order to face the person she had been dying to see all morning, quite literally, Alex found a pair of brown eyes staring at her so intensely she thought their glare would burn through her. While one day ago, Maggie’s eyes had reflected the warmth Alex liked to associate with bonfires and a nice cup of coffee, they now held nothing but the coldness, anger and strength that reminded her of the wind.

“I had a family emergency,” Alex replied, simply because she didn’t know what else to say and because it was true: she had been helping Lena and Lena was family.

Taking Maggie in, she noticed the detective was still wearing the clothes from the previous day, her slightly rumpled shirt letting Alex know her partner had yet to go home, take a much deserved shower and have a good night of sleep. While Maggie appeared to be just fine if Alex chose to look past the exhaustion evident on her slumped shoulders, the detective’s closed fists and hollow eyes told the assassin something was definitely wrong.

As Maggie’s eyes lost some of their sharpness and she unclenched her fists, Alex found herself frowning, wondering what had happened to the smile she had grown to adore, swearing she’d cause whoever was hurting Maggie so much pain.

“You’re supposed to be my partner, you know, have my back,” Maggie said, much quieter and softer than she had intended, making Alex to wish she would yell at her, let whatever she was feeling out so her eyes would go back to shining like they used to.

“I’m sorry, Maggie,” Alex apologized, looking right at her partner so she knew she meant it with her whole being.

She was sorry. For lying, for not being there for when Maggie needed her, for not being the woman she thought she was and, especially, for not knowing what to do when the detective looked only like a ghost of her old self.

Because yes, she did hold her chin high and keep her expression neutral, but Alex could see something was wrong, something that went past not having her new partner during a chase and late night investigation, something that made it possible for the assassin to see a vulnerable side of Maggie that anger and tightly pressed lips couldn’t hide.

“You look like shit,” the detective stated, a small smile tugging at the corners of her lips when Alex laughed softly as a response.

“So tell me about this case you’ve been working on all night without me, Sawyer,” Alex urged, pointing towards the board and keeping a close eye on the other woman while she went through the previous night’s events, clearly relaxing as she slipped into the role of Detective Sawyer.

***

“After that the suspect jumped from the bridge. We had patrols out looking for her, but we weren’t able to find her,” Maggie finished her explanation, raising an eyebrow at Alex’s faux amused look as if saying “ _crazy right?_ ”.

“So do you think she’s dead?” Alex asked nonchalantly, ignoring the fact she was talking about herself in the third person and focusing only on the way Maggie looked much better now that she got her mind off whatever was going on by talking about the case.

“I don’t know, I mean she could be,” Maggie shrugged. “The bridge was pretty high and she was badly injured. From what we found at the murder scene and the look of that piece of glass on her stomach, I’d guess she lost quiet the amount of blood,” she continued, looking up at Alex, who hummed in agreement, the agonizing pain of the wound on her stomach remind her of just how close she came to death.

While Maggie stared at the pictures on the board in silence, letting Alex take all the “new” information in, the assassin found her eyes drifting to the shorter woman, constantly having to push away the thoughts of how her partner was leading the hunt for the person standing next to her.

Once again, Alex was unable to forget how being there with Maggie was something she didn’t deserve. No matter how worthy and needed in made her feel or how she thought that maybe, just maybe, being around the pure goodness that was Maggie Sawyer could be her way to redemption, Alex would always be the person whose death Maggie talked about like another piece of the puzzle that was police work.

Knowing that the woman she had grown to care for so much in those past few days, who had been the reason for her to battle her own mortality and cheat death, wished to have her in handcuffs and thrown in jail for the rest of her life, due to everything she had done, made Alex’s heart clench in her chest.

Telling herself it was her own fault Maggie would never look at her the same way if she knew who she really was didn’t stop her from feeling heartbroken, or from wishing everything was different.

What had she honestly expected to come out of caring for a cop? How had she possibly, even if subconsciously, wished for this amazing woman to care for her too? And why did she even want someone she didn’t even know existed a week ago to see her differently than she did then?

The answer to all those questions was simple and Alex couldn’t even deny it if she tried as she was away too self-aware to do so. She liked Maggie Sawyer. She cared for her in ways she never cared for more than two people in her entire life. She never wanted Maggie to look at her like she was anything less than the good detective who stroked her hand softly and patched it up after it got cut during a fight.

She was falling for Maggie Sawyer and she was falling hard.

Alex didn’t know if it was the sudden realisation or the fact she wasn’t at all surprised with the revelation, but her heart started racing in her chest and, for the first time, she didn’t want it to stop, no matter how scared she felt or how she thought it would all end up in disaster.

For the first time, Alex was able to completely tune out that voice inside her head that told her she needed to protect herself, that caring for someone so strongly would destroy her, because she simply didn’t care if it did.

Maybe it was the high from the drugs or the exhilaration that came with standing next to the woman she’d go to the end of the world to protect, but, for a moment, everything apart from Maggie faded and Alex looked only at those brown, sad eyes that had lost their spark for reasons that were yet unknown, wishing she could do something to light them up.

***

“Maggie?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there with you last night,” Alex whispered.

“It’s okay, Danvers. You’re here now,” Maggie said, smiling softly and Alex believed her.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as i'm kinda unsure about this capter, hearing someone's opinions on it would be great


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as a reward for waiting so long for an update and for the awesome comments on the previous chapter, I'm giving you guys these 8.4k words of soft angst

“The DNA results from the blood samples came back,” Alex told Maggie, dropping a file on the detective’s desk, where she was reviewing the footage of their suspect breaking in the home of the man she killed.

After several hours of going over every little detail of the case with Maggie, doing her best not to doze off as her body begged for rest, Alex had found that the drugs were starting to lose their effect, making it painful to move. Hoping Maggie didn’t notice the grimace on her face, the assassin sat next to her partner, who appeared to be as tired as she was, and looked at the computer screen Maggie had been staring at for the past half hour.

“The suspect isn’t in the system,” the detective stated, not at all surprised, as her eyes run through the report and her hands found their way into her hair.

How she was clearly affected by the lack of leads on the case got Alex to think the way Maggie was acting wasn’t only due to skipping a night of sleep. Her pursed lips and slumped shoulders made Alex want to reach out, offer some comfort and tell Maggie everything would be okay. Knowing it wasn’t her place to do so caused the assassin to feel like her heart was being stabbed, as she wanted nothing more than to keep the detective safe, even if it was from her own thoughts and feelings.

Ever since realising how deeply she was starting to care for the woman she was supposed to kill, Alex’s mind had been running nonstop over every single thing she’d like to share with Maggie, every little thing she would do with her if the detective ended up feeling the same as she did.

No matter how much the rational part of her brain kept telling her she would never deserve someone as good as Maggie, Alex couldn’t help but picture them together, holding hands as they walked down the street, with no one trying to kill or arrest neither one of them. Alex could see in her mind how right it would feel to walk by the other woman’s side and she knew she would never want to let go of Maggie’s hand or look away from her sparkly eyes and dimpled smile.

The assassin also pictured doing more than just holding hands. She imagined how it would feel to capture Maggie’s lips with her own, to pour everything she felt for the detective into one simple passionate kiss, as she softly stroked her cheeks or run her fingers through her hair. She imagined how it would feel to get to wake up next to Maggie in the morning and having the woman smile against her neck. She imagined how it would feel to be the reason Maggie grinned in that way that made Alex think maybe the universe was more than just chaotic and cold, and her life was actually worth living.

However, the manner in which Maggie was completely focused on her work, clearly trying to avoid thinking about whatever was bothering her, only lead Alex to wish she could hug her and make everything okay.

“We should go to the scene, see if there’s something we missed,” the assassin suggested, her eyes trailing her own image on the computer screen as the camera showed her breaking the window that allowed her entrance to her target’s home. Alex could be unable to comfort her partner, but that wouldn’t stop her from trying to distract the detective, hoping working the case would actually help.

“I want your opinion on something first,” Maggie said, rewinding the video to the moment where the suspect looked up at the camera. “We need to put out an APB, so how tall are you?” The detective asked, grabbing a pencil and causing Alex’s heart to start pounding in her chest, before she continued. “’Cause the suspect looks like she’s about your height.”

“Uh,” Alex mumbled, biting down on her bottom lip and cursing herself for getting worked up over the possibility of Maggie finding out who she was. “About 5’6’’?” she replied, smiling softly at the detective, who was looking at her with slightly brighter eyes that had amusement written all over them, undoubtedly noticing the assassin’s nerves at being asked about her height.

“Did you really think I was considering you to be the killer?” Maggie asked lightly, once she had written _5’6’’_ on her notepad and found Alex’s scared inquisitive gaze on her. Chuckling quietly at her partner’s shy nod, the detective locked the strand of hair Alex had been staring at for quite some time behind her ear and got up, motioning for Alex to do the same.

“I mean, for all you know I could be our suspect,” the assassin joked, a warm feeling settling on her chest as she was able to get Maggie to smile again, tilting her head in that way that made Alex’s knees go weak. “We both ride bikes, plus we have the same height and excellent taste in leather jackets,” she added, grinning as she walked by her partner’s side, the sound of the detective’s laugh being everything she needed to push past the fact she was indeed the killer they were pursuing and Maggie would be totally right by assuming so.

“Don’t forget you’re both in awesome physical shape,” Maggie said, smirking at the way Alex’s cheeks heated up, clearly pleased with how easy it was for her to get her new partner flustered.

“Are you alright there, Danvers?” The detective teased once they reached the precinct’s door, smiling knowingly at Alex’s blush while the assassin kept her eyes firmly on the ground, avoiding looking at Maggie until she could stop herself from resembling a lovesick puppy due to a simple comment and a warm smile.

“Give me just a second,” Alex said, motioning to the restroom, guessing she should probably get herself together before heading into a twenty minute drive by Maggie’s side. The smile she received from the detective along with a _I’ll wait on the car_ prompted her to take a deep breath and enjoy the way her heart fluttered as she watched Maggie walk away.

Once in the bathroom, Alex looked at herself in the mirror, gripping the white marble sink as she allowed the wave of pain that cursed through her entire body, making it hard to breathe, to finally wash over her. Her easy smile was quickly replaced by a frown as the assassin locked herself in one of the stools and looked at her stomach wound, whose bandage was starting to show the tiniest of blood stains.

Forcing all of the pained whimpers that threatened to leave her lips down her throat, Alex cleaned the stitched gash as quickly as she could, eager to go back to her partner.

As she washed her hands and hid away all traces of agony behind the soft smile she now reserved for Maggie, Alex found herself thinking that no matter how much her ribs hurt or how often she was haunted by thoughts of freezing waters and the feeling of her body sinking in them, she'd go through the all the pain the previous night had caused a thousand times, if it meant getting Maggie to look at her like she just had; if it meant being able to make the detective laugh after hours of seeing her eyes dull and foggy; if it meant being the reason Maggie didn’t feel so alone in the world.

***

They rode in comfortable silence, Alex focused on the road ahead of them while Maggie drove, her eyes leaving the dark asphalt to look at the woman next to her more times than she would dare to admit. The assassin was glad to notice her partner getting less tense as they got farther and farther away from the city, the early afternoon sunlight shining on the detective’s smooth hair in a way Alex could only describe as heavenly.

 (She had by then lost count of the number of times she found Maggie to look like she was created by God himself, like it was impossible for the universe to come up with something as beautiful as her without divine intervention).

As the image of Maggie pointing a gun at her the previous night came up in her mind, ruining one of those imaginary scenarios Alex’s thoughts had been going through all day, the assassin’s heart clenched and her eyes blinked furiously at the tears that threatened to fill them. Taking a deep breath, Alex trained her gaze on Maggie once more, forcing the harsh expression and hatred clouded brown orbs, which seemed to be carved in the stone that was her infallible memory, to fade away.

The detective must have felt the assassin’s eyes going over her form since she turned to Alex, a small smile on her lips as her face lighted up at the sight of her partner quickly looking away and nibbling on her lip, pretending like she hadn’t been staring at her from the moment they got on the squad car and Maggie allowed the radio to emanate soft background noise.

 “Maggie?” Alex found herself asking before she could stop herself, the name of the woman she was so happy to have met, despite the circumstances, rolling easily out of her mouth, sounding as familiar as if she had been saying it her whole life.

“Yeah?” Maggie replied, turning towards the assassin once more, sensing a foreign uncertainty on her voice. As the detective’s eyes searched her own, Alex figured she could just ask about what had been bothering her all morning, about the reason behind the sudden lack of dimples in the other woman’s smile and the strain she seemed to carry on her shoulders.

“What’s wrong?” Alex asked, attempting to sound casual and not as worried as she actually was, hoping her tone was enough to show her partner that she could talk to her, that she could trust her. “I mean, I – I don’t want to intrude,” she said once she was merely met with silence, feeling like she had overstepped as it wasn’t her place to question Maggie’s personal life. “It’s just that you seem kinda… off,” she continued, wrinkling her nose as she played with the sleeves of her jacket in an attempt to tune out the way her heart was racing in her chest.

“I’m fine, Danvers,” Maggie replied, her smile widening slightly, but Alex didn’t believe her, not even for a second. Her throat closed in on itself, making it harder to breathe, as she noticed the way Maggie’s fists clutched the steering wheel harder, her knuckles turning whiter.

And even though Alex knew she didn’t have the right to push for more, to ask for the detective’s trust and confidence, it still hurt to not be told the truth, to have the woman she cared so much for lie to her like she was any other person.

“You can talk to me,” the assassin whispered softly, her hand brushing over Maggie’s thigh in a swift moment of bravery before it retreated back to her lap. “If you want to,” she added as an afterthought, looking away from Maggie before she was reminded of just how unimportant she was, of how an amazingly strong detective wouldn’t need her.

“My-” Maggie started after what appeared to be hours for Alex, her voice low and wavering, causing the assassin to look back up at her, only to find her gaze focused on the road and her jaw clenched. “My girlfriend broke up with me,” the detective finally managed to get out, taking a deep breath.

If Alex was anyone else she would have taken Maggie’s nonchalant tone and shrugging shoulders as a sign of the matter not really affecting her friend, but she wasn’t. She wasn’t and so she could see behind Maggie’s tough façade, behind the walls she had put up to avoid showing how devastated she was, to avoid being hurt. She wasn’t and so the way Maggie tried to smile while her lips begged to stay pursed caused her brows to turn into a frown and her hands to clench themselves into fists, an uncontrollable wave of concern mixed with anger and a sudden will to protect Maggie from everything she must have been feeling flooding her.

“What? Why would she? That makes no sense,” Alex rambled as she tried to get her mind around the new piece of information, her thoughts mainly consisting of _who the hell would break up with Maggie “the embodiment of perfection” Sawyer_ and what she could do to make her pay for every bit of suffering she had put the detective through.

“Who the hell would do _that_?” Alex asked before she noticed she had voiced her thoughts, her tone betraying just how confused and angry she was.

“She would,” Maggie sighed, only fuelling Alex’s desire to torture whoever the detective was referring to even further. “Apparently she doesn’t take well to me being out all night working a case instead of at home with her,” she continued, bitterly spitting out words, looking everywhere but in Alex’s direction, causing the assassin to immediately feel guilty because that was her fault.

After all, she was the reason Maggie had been out all night. She was the reason there was a dead guy in the morgue down town and Maggie had to be called into work after midnight. She was the reason Maggie’s eyes had heavy bags underneath them and her whole body screamed exhaustion.

Alex couldn’t even believe herself when a warm feeling came to settle in the depths of her being because Maggie was single then, because maybe there was a way of showing the detective just how she deserved so much more than being dumped in the middle of the night because she was out doing her job.

And so every bit of guilt she had been feeling increased a thousand times over. How could she possibly be thinking about the chance that maybe she could have Maggie in a way she didn’t even deserve? How could she be feeling glad – happy even – after hearing the woman she claimed to care so much for had lost someone clearly important to her?

Suddenly, all the anger and fury she had directed at the woman who broke Maggie’s heart a couple of minutes before was aimed at herself.

“I’m sorry,” Alex apologized, momentarily wishing she hadn’t asked Maggie about what had been bothering her if only it would have stopped her from feeling like she was the worst person in the world, which, if her partner knew what she actually did for a living, was what she’d see her as.

“It’s fine,” Maggie reassured, visibly swallowing down the gulp in her throat, not knowing what Alex could possibly be apologizing for.

“Don’t say that,” Alex urged, her voice slightly louder than she had expected it to be and her head shaking vigorously, because no, it wasn’t _fine_ and Maggie needed to know that, needed to know how she was worth so much more. And even though Alex couldn’t possibly deserve someone as good as Maggie, she was sure there was someone out there who could; someone who would love and support her like Alex wished to, wanted to.

“Seriously, Danvers, it is,” Maggie insisted and Alex couldn’t believe that she actually sounded like she meant it, that she could think so little of herself. As the detective went through a list of words her ex had used to describe her (that were “probably right”), all Alex could hear were atrocities.

Maggie wasn’t “hard-headed” or “insensitive”; she was caring, loving and so, so kind. She wasn’t “obsessed with work”, she was deeply dedicated to bringing justice to those who couldn’t get it themselves, to make the world a better place. It didn’t take Alex more than a day to figure that out and so she was completely lost on how someone could be in a relationship with a woman as wonderful as Maggie and not understand her at all.

“You deserve better,” Alex quietly mumbled, not sure the detective had heard her, not sure she wanted to be heard as she bit her tongue and looked at Maggie wishing to take all her pain away, even if it meant putting it on herself.

They were quiet for the rest of the drive towards the crime scene. Somehow, Alex’s hand had made its way to Maggie’s thigh once again without her noticing. Although, this time, when she did notice her hand’s whereabouts, she didn’t pull it away; she squeezed lightly and rubbed soothing patterns over Maggie’s jeans, hoping they could convey everything she wanted to say.

***

Later in the day, once her shift was over and she had said goodbye to Maggie with a promise to see her in the morning, Alex found herself to be restless, her tendency to overthink not allowing her to get the much needed rest she had been looking forward to.

Not only did the events of the previous days weigh heavily in the assassin’s mind, but the edginess that came from a radical change in her routine made it impossible for her mind to turn itself off, preventing her from sleeping. After all, at eight p.m. on a Tuesday night, Alex would usually be getting ready for a hit, cleaning her rifles and sharpening her knives, a ritual she thoroughly enjoyed.

However, lying in bed staring at the ceiling as the numbers on her alarm clock barely appeared to change and she attempted to get some rest, unable to move without her stomach and ribs protesting in pain, Alex couldn’t help but wonder what the hell she was supposed to do. If she went through with her decision to quit the assassination business, what would she do with her life? What was she good at besides killing?

And then there was Maggie, who got her heart broken by someone who didn’t fully appreciate her, who chose to ignore all of the detective’s qualities and focus only on a couple of flaws Alex couldn’t help but consider quirks.

Thinking about Maggie, about how Alex had felt the need to do anything to make the detective feel better, about how she wanted to be there in case she needed someone to lean on, about how she wanted to be the one to help her, not only then, but always, caused a mix of warmth and fear to settle itself on Alex’s chest.

Suddenly, the constant worrying and wondering about the other woman lead Alex to reach for her phone, cursing as the thread closing the gash on her stomach threatened to tear apart.

**To Maggie S.** (20:17): _Wanna go have a drink?_

The assassin texted, her teeth nibbling on her bottom lip reminding her of why she shouldn’t ask what she wanted to, shouldn’t question the detective about how she was doing, of how it wasn’t her place.

**From Maggie S.** (20:19): _Two nights in a row, Danvers?_

Alex smiled softly, imagining how Maggie’s voice would bear its usual teasing tone and her head would tilt amusedly, if they were speaking in person.

**To Maggie S.** (20:20): _I was guessing you needed one after today._

**From Maggie S.** (20:20): _I do, but I don’t feel like going out._

Alex ignored the slight disappointment that threatened to wash over her, telling herself that she should have expected Maggie to want some time alone, that Maggie would accept her proposal in other circumstances, that the detective was merely taking time to sort out her thoughts and feelings.

**From Maggie S.** (20:21): _I appreciate the offer though._

In the dark of the room, the assassin found herself smiling at her phone like an idiot, because Maggie appreciated the fact Alex thought of her, appreciated the fact Alex cared.

**To Maggie S.** (20:22): _If you change your mind give me a call. Hope you feel better soon :)_

There was no reply after that and Alex had to force herself to stop picking up her phone and typing messages like _I’m here for you_ and _I really care about you_ or even _She didn’t deserve you_ , only to delete them after, knowing none of that would help her friend.

Hours later, once her body finally gave out and even her brain had grown tired from running over the same thoughts again and again, the last thing to come to Alex’s mind was how much she was starting to dislike the word _friend._

_***_

The next couple of days passed by quickly as Alex watched Maggie throw herself into work, walking became easier and breathing less painful, and the sadness that had taken over the detective after her break up faded away to the point where Alex could see her easy grin every couple of hours.

It came as a relief to the assassin that no actual evidence found during the investigation lead back to her, since Maggie didn’t manage to find her bike’s origin or get a conclusive description from the guy Alex had been forced to assault to get herself home in one piece. However, Maggie was good at her job and, much to her trepidation, Alex knew she was getting closer.

The assassin had to admit her new found partner was pretty amazing for more than just her personality, but also for how brilliant she was at her job, if the perfect timeline of events she built for the night of the incident was any indication of that.

While the days got colder as the second week of November came around, Alex found herself getting closer to the detective, caring more and more for her until it was unbearably frustrating how her still healing body prevented her from going after the people who wanted to hurt the woman she was now sure to be falling for. No matter how much the voice in her head told her it was a bad idea to feel whatever it was the assassin was feeling and wouldn’t dare call anything other than fondness, Alex couldn’t stop her heartbeat from fluttering whenever she was near Maggie, or her throat from tightening around itself whenever the detective’s eyes lost their usual spark.

Alex had it bad and she knew it. Her only hope was that she could keep her feelings hidden long enough for Maggie not to notice them until she could find the people who ordered her death, until the detective was safe and Alex had every reason to leave her life.

Because that was what was going to happen, right? After putting a bullet in those trying to get the detective killed, Alex had no right to keep pretending to be someone she wasn’t, to keep lying to the only woman she had ever wanted to call something other than _friend_.

As much as she enjoyed the close friendship that was growing between them, the late nights playing pool at the alien bar where she would get to see Maggie at ease, the early mornings that came with Alex bringing her coffee at the precinct, the days spent at crime scenes by each other’s sides or at desks filling out reports together, Alex knew that nothing could come out of all of it. Maggie would hate her for everything she had done, no matter how many beats Alex’s heart skipped when seeing her walk down the precinct, or how she felt herself flying away every time their eyes met or Maggie’s hand brushed against her own.

“Hey, are you okay?” Maggie asked, her eyes softly searching the assassin’s, bringing her back to the small diner they were having a late lunch in. Alex must have dozed off as she watched heavy rain falling down and hitting the diner’s windows, her mind too focused on everything that was going on to notice her nails were digging into her palms until Maggie’s hand came to rest on hers.

“Yeah,” Alex said, pushing her thoughts to the back of her mind as her gaze came down from Maggie’s face to their joined hands. “I’m fine,” she reassured once Maggie’s head tilted as if asking _really?_ and her hand gave Alex’s a soft squeeze.

“Well, the DEO just called,” the detective stated, dropping her hand on the table and causing Alex to immediately miss the warmth of her touch. “They’re bringing in an alien that went rogue tonight and apparently it’s a “all hands on deck” kind of situation ‘cause they’re asking for our help,” Maggie continued, her eyes shining like they hadn’t in days at the prospect of an old fashioned takedown and some real action.

“Will Supergirl be there?” Alex managed to ask once she realised the implications of what her partner was saying, her voice barely audible as her thoughts went from _Maggie’s hand is so soft_ to _I can’t let Kara see me_ and she was submerged by apprehension at the idea of her little sister finding out what she had been up to lately. Although Kara had shielded her from Maggie’s bullets the night they had last seen each other, Alex was pretty sure that didn’t mean she would approve of an assassin working alongside one of the city’s best detectives.

“Yeah, I suppose,” Maggie replied, frowning at the way Alex’s hands had once again closed themselves into fists and her teeth were nibbling on her bottom lip worriedly, letting her know her attempts at keeping a neutral expression had failed. “Is something wrong with that?”

“No. No, I mean – it’s just that… she’s Supergirl,” Alex chuckled, trying to ease the tension that had suddenly built a wall between them. “You know, she can shoot lasers out of her eyes and fly, I didn’t think the DEO would need our help when they have her,” she explained as they exited the diner and made their way to Maggie’s squad car, which had by then become Alex’s favourite car in the whole world.

“Yeah, they must be pretty desperate,” Maggie agreed, walking as fast as she could to the car as to avoid getting soaked by the rain and damn, was she beautiful with tiny drops of water on her hair, her warm brown eyes looking up to the cold grey sky with excitement.

“We should go to their headquarters to get briefed,” the detective suggested once they were safely sheltered from the rain and the freezing breeze by the warmth of her car, the smile on her face so bright that Alex couldn’t help but smile as well, no matter the eminent risk of having her cover blown by her sister.

They were comfortable enough with each other by then that car rides were no longer spent in silence and so Alex tried her best to let herself relax and not think of what would happen once she saw Kara. Focusing on the woman beside her, she listened to Maggie excitedly ramble about how working with the DEO was always “sooooo fun” because “they get all the best cases and their equipment is something out of a sci-fi movie, Danvers”.

However, no matter how good it felt to get a glimpse of Maggie’s dimples or how her heart pounded in her chest due to just how incredible it was to see Detective Sawyer this thrilled by the prospect of getting to shoot something, Alex couldn’t shake the tension from her shoulders, couldn’t get her hands to stop trembling in her lap or her teeth from biting the inside of her cheek.

She wasn’t ready for Maggie to find out the truth about her. She wasn’t ready to lose one of the only people she cared about and still saw her as something good. She wasn’t ready for Maggie to hate her, for her to point her handgun at her once more with nothing but determination and coldness in her eyes. She wasn’t ready not to be by the detective’s side all day, for not walking close enough to her that their hands brushed once in a while, sending a bolt of electricity running up her arm.

It didn’t matter that she didn’t deserve her, although it should; It didn’t matter that Maggie would find out eventually and everything they had would still be ruined; It didn’t matter that Alex was supposed to have killed her.

Alex wasn’t ready to lose Maggie Sawyer and she would be damned if she let Kara take away the only good thing to happen to her in years. The assassin knew she was being shellfish, but one glance to her left, where Maggie was enthusiastically telling her about her last operation with the DEO, was all it took for Alex not to care.

Arriving at the DEO headquarters, Maggie quickly made her way inside the building, showing security some kind of special badge that allowed them to enter and earned them an escort to what Alex could only imagine was the centre of operations.

The building was just like Maggie had described it on the car and from the little she got to observe of its agents and the weapons they carried, Alex found only a word to describe it and that was _impressive_. She had, as had anyone in her line of business, heard of the DEO before, of course. But she had to admit she hadn’t expected something quiet as monumental and she suddenly understood the reason behind Maggie’s excitement.

“That’s the director,” Maggie whispered once they had reached a round table with the DEO’s logo on the centre, surrounded by agents dressed in black who seemed to be paying attention to the man Maggie was pointing to and Alex recognized as Hank Henshaw or, as she had heard Kara call him before their fallout, J’onn Jonzz.

“And there’s the Girl of Steel,” Maggie added, nodding in the direction of Kara, who stood beside J’onn as he told his agents what to expect when breaching the warehouse the rogue alien had been operating from, her eyes firmly trained on the schematics exposed on the screens behind them.

According to the director, the main objective of the mission was taking down the alien by any means necessary, in order to get it into custody so he could be lawfully processed according to the Amnesty Act.

“The NCPD will help us on this one,” J’onn said as he finished the briefing, nodding towards Maggie and effectively leaving Alex with no hope of not being noticed by her sister, as every single person in the room turned to look at them, their expressions showing the slightest of surprise, while Kara’s eyes reflected nothing but pure shock once they settled themselves on Alex.

Once J’onn was done with his briefing and most of the agents vacated the room, Alex’s heart started racing in her chest with anticipation, the assassin knowing whatever came out of her next interaction with her sister would determine her future, quite literally. As she forced her teeth to leave her bottom lip, Alex watched Supergirl walk towards them, her expression clearly echoing something close to anger and disbelief.

“Hey Maggie, can I steal her for a bit?” Kara asked, nodding towards Alex, arms crossed over her chest like they always did when she was trying to hold in her feelings and refraining from saying something she shouldn’t.

Before Maggie even had the chance to answer, Kara already had a vice grip on Alex’s arm and was dragging her away to an empty room, leaving a very confused detective behind her. All Alex could do was thank god Kara had the sense of not doing whatever she was about to do in front of Maggie.

“What are you doing here?” Kara asked, her voice harsh, as she pinned Alex to a cement wall and tightened her grip on her arm, making tears sting Alex’s eyes due to the bone crushing strength her sister was using on her. “I should arrest you.”

“I- Kara – please,” Alex mumbled, struggling to find the right words when the person she loved most on the entire planet was looking at her with so much rage, causing her heart to painfully clench in her chest. In that moment, Alex wished like she had never wished before that she could take everything back, all the killing and lying, all that made it impossible for Kara’s gaze to convey love instead of hate. “I’m so sorry,” she quietly whispered, her eyes focused on floor, unable to face her sister’s.

“Give me one good reason not to arrest you right now,” Kara demanded, her voice quivering, letting Alex know she hated the situation just as much as she did.

“It’s Maggie,” Alex said, her eyes immediately softening at the thought of the other woman. “I was hired to kill Maggie,” she explained, her voice breaking slightly as she forced her eyes to search for Kara’s, and god was it awful to say it out loud, to admit to someone other than herself she accepted to kill such a wonderful woman. “But I- I can’t do it – I don’t want to,” she continued. “I like her so much, Kara, she doesn’t deserve to die.”

Alex didn’t know if it was the confession or the tears that were now unstoppably running down her cheeks, but something caused Kara’s eyes to soften the slightest bit and the grip on her arm to loosen itself until her hand fell unceremoniously by her side.

“You have to give me more than that,” Kara said and, despite knowing what her sister was asking was fair and their relationship was far from being what it once was, Alex couldn’t help but wish she didn’t have to talk, but hope she could merely lay her head on her sisters strong shoulders and have her wrap her arms around her like she did when they were younger and Alex hadn’t screwed everything up.

As the assassin talked her sister through everything that happened, explaining the need to find her client to prevent Maggie from getting killed, her flow of tears came to a stop and her eyes wordlessly begged Kara to forgive her or to, at least, see her as someone who needed help like she had only a year ago.

“You really care about her, don’t you?” Kara asked, receiving a fervent nod as Alex’s only answer. “You hurt so many people, Alex,” the hero mumbled after a quick pause, shaking her head lightly. The “ _you hurt me”_ went unsaid, although the assassin heard it all too well.

“I know, I’m so sorry, Kara,” Alex said, her voice hoarse and her eyes wet as she fought to keep any more of her tears from falling.

“I was so worried about you,” Kara confessed, playing with the edges of her cape. “I thought you were dead, I looked everywhere but I couldn’t find you and your heartrate was so faint the noise of the water didn’t let me listen to it. I- I thought I had lost you,” she went on, her own eyes wet with unshed tears and her bottom lip shaking in the way Alex knew to mean her little sister was trying very hard not to let her emotions out.

Nevertheless, Alex couldn’t help the raspy chuckle that left her throat as she realised Kara still cared for her, even after everything she had done and everyone she had killed.

“You won’t ever lose me, Kara,” Alex reassured, sighing in relief once her sister’s arms took her in their embrace, holding her tightly, her head coming to rest on Kara’s shoulder.

“We can figure something out,” Kara said surely, referring to Maggie’s situation. “But you have to promise me you won’t kill anyone else, Alex.”

“I promise.”

***

“What was that about?” Maggie asked once Alex was within hearing range, her arms crossed over her chest as her eyebrows rose, letting the assassin know she had been going over Supergirl’s sudden reaction to ´her during the half hour they had been gone.

Knowing Maggie would be waiting for her back in the control room, patiently expecting Alex to come back, had prompted the assassin to convince Kara they could talk later and so, a long hug and a few reassurances later, Alex was back at Maggie’s side, practically beaming.

Although the issue of what would happen after she managed to find the people who wanted Maggie dead didn’t come up, the assassin knew it would have to be brought up sooner rather than later, which lead to a new tide of dread to wash over her.

Nevertheless, Alex couldn’t stop herself from smiling. After all, things went better than she expected, Kara didn’t hate her, Maggie didn’t find out who she really was and she was about to finally get to shoot something after a week of her fingers itching to pull a trigger.

“Oh, that was nothing,” Alex replied, a sense of easy contentment settling in her chest before she remembered how it must have appeared odd that she was literally dragged away by the Girl of Steel and her eyes were puffy and red. “It’s sort of a long story,” she added as an afterthought, hoping to bring Maggie’s attention to the fact they didn’t really have time to discuss it then.

Although the detective merely nodded, leading her to the armory in silence, Alex knew she didn’t like the answer she got, knew Maggie was going over every single scenario that could possibly explain her partner’s mysterious relationship with Nacional City’s hero

Pushing away the guilt that came with being unable to tell Maggie the truth, Alex walked by her partner’s side, telling herself to remember asking Lena for advice.

Alex watched whatever suspicion that had been clouding Maggie’s eyes fade away once they reached the armory and were given equipment for the mission ahead, the detective’s expression reflecting only a mix of joy and awe.

The drive to the warehouse district where the alien had been hiding was pretty quick, the sound of rain falling down on the root of Maggie’s squad car drowning out the detective’s voice as she hummed along to the soft tune coming from the radio. Before any of them knew it, they were standing behind a dozen of DEO agents, waiting for them to breach the warehouse as tiny drops of water came to fall down on their faces, making it harder to have a firm grip on the DEO issued rifles they held.

Looking at Maggie, who was by then wearing her oversized police jacket, which caused Alex to be submerged in something deep she  only dared to call adoration, the assassin found her partner focused on the door ahead of them, a smile no longer on her lips as they were pursed in concentration.

Before Alex knew it, the agents in charge initiated a countdown and they were storming the building, checking behind every shelf and pile of boxes that filled the warehouse, searching for the rogue alien they were supposed to apprehend. Letting Maggie take the lead once they were forced to enter a maze of shelves, stepping away from the other agents, Alex walked slightly behind the other woman, weapon held high and ready to fire at any sign of danger.

As the agents in the nearby stacks of boxes and shelves yelled out _Clear!_ and a whoosh of air sounded somewhere to their right, letting the pair know Supergirl had arrived, Maggie reached the corner of the closest line of shelfs, stopping in her tracks once she noticed something moving behind them.

Noticing the sudden movement as well, Alex signalled for Maggie to stay put as she checked it out, her heart beating louder in her chest once her partner shook her head in disagreement and motioned to peek behind the shelf herself.

Before they could come to an agreement, the grey lizard-shaped alien they had seen pictures of back at the DEO came behind the shelf, grunting in an imperceptible language, leading Alex to grab her partner’s jacket and tug at it until Maggie was by her side, which barely allowed the detective to escape the alien’s grasp.

The sound of Alex’s blood flushing through her ears was muted by the noise of her rifle opening fire on the creature, who appeared to have every intention of putting up a fight. Looking over at Maggie in an attempt to make sure she was unarmed as her finger kept pulling the trigger, she noticed her partner had given up firing as their bullets didn’t seem to affect the alien.

Before they could back away from their target and get to safety, the alien quickly ran in their direction, his hand showing powerful claws and his eyes reflecting noting but bloodthirst and rage as he made his way towards Maggie.

_Not her, you won’t hurt her_ , was everything going through the assassin’s mind when the adrenaline from the current events finally hit her and she revelled in the way her heart thumped in her chest.

“Maggie, watch out,” Alex managed to yell before she pushed the detective against the nearby line of shelfs, taking her place in front of the creature just before it reached them.

Supergirl must have heard the fight in progress since she was suddenly by Alex’s side, using her speed to get to her sister as soon as possible. However, Kara didn’t manage to arrive before the alien threw Alex against the opposite shelfs Maggie was using to support her weigh, sending the assassin flying for the briefest of seconds before her body hit cold metal and she was falling down to the floor with a loud thump.

Alex’s eyes were closed by instinct, her head throbbing and her body aching as she attempted to pay attention to the fight that was surely happening a few feet away.

“Alex,” a voice sounded above her while a soft hand came to rest on her shoulder, shaking her carefully. “Alex,” the voice repeated, a certain urgency clear on it this time as one of the hands on her shoulders came to stroke her cheek.

Taking a deep breath and bracing herself for the blinding light that would invade her eyes as soon as she opened them, Alex allowed her lips to curve up into a small smile as she recognized the familiar voice calling her name.

“Look at me,” Maggie asked, clasping her hands tight around Alex’s, leaving the assassin no choice but to comply and open her eyes, only to catch the glimpse of Maggie’s own warm brown orbs staring at her with concern before her eyelids begged to fall on her eyes once more.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Maggie said and Alex didn’t know if it was due to the fact she hit her head pretty hard or to Maggie’s strong grip on her hands, but the assassin could hear a certain amount of anger on the detective’s voice. “You can’t put yourself in danger to save me.”

“Isn’t that what partners are for?” Alex murmured, pushing her eyes open once again and _wow_ , she hadn’t noticed Maggie was so close. Her gaze involuntarily went down to the detective’s lips and Alex wondered what would happen if she closed the small distance between them. Instead of doing what would surely lead to disaster, Alex forced herself to look back into Maggie’s eyes, smiling softly at the worry she found there, her heart skipping a beat due to how much she could see Maggie cared for her.

“Come on, let’s get someone to take a look at you,” Maggie urged, shaking her head as she helped Alex get on her feet, positioning herself beneath Alex’s right arm and resting her left hand on the assassin’s waist to offer her support.

“I’m fine,” Alex reassured, murmuring something along the lines of _I’m practically a doctor, you know?_ to Maggie, who merely chuckled, causing Alex to feel the detective’s ribs vibrating against her own due to how close they were.

“Yeah?” Maggie questioned, letting go of her partner and watching her stumble without her support as she attempted to keep walking away from what Alex only then noticed was the fallen alien surrounded by agents restraining him.

“Maybe ‘m a little dizzy,” Alex confessed, sighing in content as Maggie welcomed her in her arms once more and laughed lightly, stroking random patterns over the assassin’s hip.

Alex had never felt as comfortable was she did right there, with a cut on her forehead allowing a flow of blood to run over her temple, her body pressed closely against the detective’s, so closely she could, in fact, feel Maggie’s warmth and smell her soft perfume, could feel the woman’s soft hair brushing against her neck and notice the way they seemed to fit together as if they were only one.

“Hey, is everything okay?” Kara’s voice echoed in Alex’s ears, causing the assassin to look up from where Maggie was dropping her rifle on the floor in order to better support her weight, to her sister’s shiny blue eyes.

“Yeah, but my partner here hit her head pretty hard,” Maggie replied, the laughter disappearing from her tone as she looked over at Alex’s cut, studying it carefully.

“Would you like me to take you to the hospital, Detective Danvers?” Supergirl inquired, unable to mask the concern that was suddenly clouding her eyes as soon as she spotted the blood trickling down her sister’s temple.

Maggie’s narrowed eyes were all it took for Alex to know the detective had picked up on the worry in Kara’s voice. The assassin patiently waited for Maggie to let her go, dreading the moment she would leave the warmth and safety of the detective’s arms.

“I’ll take her, it’s the least I can do,” Maggie said, surprising both women before her and, maybe, if the muscles momentarily tensing beneath Alex were any indication, even herself. The detective’s hesitation barely lasted a second though, since before Alex noticed it, Maggie was giving Supergirl a respectful nod and tightening her arm around the assassin’s waist, leading her away.

“I don’t need to go to the hospital,” Alex stubbornly insisted once they were outside the warehouse and had given back their DEO borrowed equipment. “I’m fine.”

“Let the medical team check you out then,” Maggie asked, looking into Alex’s eyes and causing the assassin’s breath to get caught in her throat. “Please, Alex,” she added, her voice soft and her eyes hopeful, and before Alex knew what she was doing she found herself agreeing with a quick “ _okay”_ because how was she supposed not to? The assassin was pretty sure she’d do anything Maggie ever asked while looking at her like that, with that softness in her eyes Alex found so endearing and had come love; while whispering her first name in a way that made Alex want to do nothing but kiss her until the only sounds coming from her throat were moans, until Maggie’s hands left her waist and found themselves on her hair, until the detective’s breathing picked up and Alex could feel her heart beating beneath her chest.

And even though Alex couldn’t do any of that, the small dimpled grin she got in return for her agreement was more than enough of a reward, no matter how much the assassin wished she could wipe it off Maggie’s face with her own lips.

As Maggie lead her to a man taking care of several other agents who had managed to get themselves hurt, Alex noticed the sun was setting, the late afternoon’s light shining over Maggie’s hair almost as brightly as the smile that was still on the detective’s face.

Once the medic came over to bandage Alex’s cut and examine her, the assassin mourned the loss of Maggie’s arm at her waist, attempting to draw her attention towards what the man was doing and not looking over at her partner, who waited nearby for reasons Alex had yet to discover.

“Could you take me back to the precinct?” Alex asked once the medic had finished patching her up and she was able to walk to where Maggie was standing on her own. “I left my bike there,” she explained.

“No way,” the detective refused, shaking her head softly. “You sustained a head injury, I don’t think you should drive,” Maggie continued, stepping closer to the assassin as if checking the medical team had done a good job on her partner’s wound.

“I’ll be fine, Maggie.”

“Besides, I’m pretty sure I heard the guy who patched you up saying you shouldn’t be alone,” the detective added, ignoring Alex’s protest and grinning at the annoyance that crossed her face.

“Yeah, well, I don’t have anyone to watch over me so,” Alex nodded towards Maggie’s squad car, her heart beating faster as she walked towards the vehicle and realized what the detective had implied: that she cared enough about Alex that she didn’t want to leave her alone, that she didn’t want to say goodbye just yet.

“You can come to my place, my couch is pretty comfy,” Maggie offered, smiling softly, causing Alex to turn around and face her, a warm feeling settling on her chest as her lips’ corners turned up, matching Maggie’s grin. “Plus, I’ve been waiting to beat you at something and I think I know just the thing,” the detective added, her smile wider, dimples on full display and head tilted to side in that irresistible way.

“Really?” Alex asked, knowing she probably sounded more hopeful than she should, more vulnerable than she should, more eager than she should.

“Really,” Maggie nodded, taking off her police jacket and draping it gently around Alex’s shoulders once the assassin shivered due to the cold November wind, motioning for Alex to follow her into the car.

Sitting in a squad car besides the woman who made her grin like an idiot, Alex wondered how she had gotten so lucky. After all, murderers weren’t supposed to feel protected by the mere presence of the person they were hired to kill, weren’t supposed to feel so content by the simple fact said person was currently looking at them with a smile on her lips or by the idea of being important to the wonderful women they had grown to adore. People who murdered others for a living, such as Alex, didn’t deserve any of that.

For once, as she snuggled deeper into Maggie’s jacket, Alex didn’t care.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I inicially wrote the Kara&Alex reunion in a much sadder way, but I just couldn't write Alex in pain anymore so I hope you guys still enjoyed this chapter


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for the awesome comments on the last chapter  
> I apologize in advance for the Light Angst™

The ride back to Maggie’s apartment had been long enough for the assassin to start feeling sleepy; the comfort of being enveloped by her partner’s light perfume in the warmth brought by the woman’s jacket had allowed tiredness to overcome her, causing her eyelids to drop and for her to miss the way Maggie softly smiled at her ever so often.

After climbing up a few flights of stairs after the detective, Alex had soon found herself standing in the middle of Maggie’s living room, looking around in wonder as she realised everything resembled her partner so much that it might just be her new favourite place in the world.

As she studied the many police and leather jackets hanged to her right and noticed a fuzzy blanket neatly folded on edge of the couch, the assassin felt a sense of rightness settling on her chest as if everything she had been through that week had been leading to that exact moment, where she hit by the breath-taking perception that made her feel so at ease, where she found somewhere she belonged, somewhere she imagined she could, one day, call home.

“Let me take that,” Maggie said, motioning for her jacket, which was still safely covering Alex’s shoulders even after several minutes had gone by inside the detective’s apartment. The assassin reluctantly shrugged of the police jacket, her mind going over the fact she would have worn it forever if it meant feeling as close to Maggie as she did when she was surrounded by her scent.

Smiling shyly at her partner once she had hanged the jacket by the door, Alex mimicked Maggie’s actions as she unloaded her service weapon and set it inside a small safe on a shelf the assassin had yet to notice, her eyes running over the spines of dozens of books a few moments later as she hummed in approval of Maggie’s reading choices. She must have spaced out while committing the titles to memory since before she could notice it Maggie’s hand was on her back, her eyes amusedly searching for the assassin’s.

Before Alex could get out the _“I’m sorry”_ that was on the tip of her tongue as soon as she realized she had been invading Maggie’s privacy while exploring her belongings without her consenting it, the detective was pulling out the astronomy book Alex had been staring at, a grin crossing her lips and her head tilting to the side like it so often did around Alex.

“You like the stars, Danvers?” She asked, her hand never leaving the assassin’s back, and Alex found her breath catching in her throat. The way her heart rate quickened brought her back to reality only for her to acknowledge how close she was to Maggie, how beautifully alive the detective’s eyes were when they were looking at her with such wonder and affection, as if she was the only thing Maggie could see.

 “Yeah,” the assassin answered quietly, too caught up in the warmth of the detective’s hand on her back to realize she was involuntarily moving closer to the other woman, her eyes trained on her lips.

“Nerd,” Maggie joked, a small chuckle leaving her lips as she put the book back in shelf and her dimples made a much welcomed appearance on her cheeks.

“Yeah,” Alex agreed absentmindedly as her hand left her side to move a strand of Maggie’s hair that was falling down on her face behind her ear. Before her fingers reached their destiny, however, the detective’s head was shaking amusedly as she laughed and her hand fell from Alex’s back, bringing whatever it was they had got caught up on to an end.

“My dad used to take me stargazing every weekend, it was our thing,” Alex explained once she found Maggie’s eyes on her even after they had stepped away from each other. “The stars make me feel closer to him,” she finished softly, her chest aching as she remembered those warm summer nights in Midvale where Jeremiah would point out the constellations and tell her about the mythology behind their names.

“He sounds nice,” Maggie said, running her fingertips over the spine of the astronomy book one last time as if she was considering something.

“He was,” Alex nodded with a soft smile on her lips, glad to finally be sharing something with Maggie about her past that wasn’t fabricated to fit her cover identity; that actually allowed the detective to learn about her in an authentic way, which didn’t involve lies or half-truths.

Alex watched as Maggie dropped her hand from the shelf and guided it towards her own, their fingers brushing slightly before the detective’s hand gently grabbed hers, giving it a light squeeze, and lead her to the couch, only letting go once they were both sitting down, their thighs barely apart.

“Does pizza sound good for dinner?” Maggie asked and Alex could tell her partner wanted to inquire about what had happened to her dad, wanted the assassin to tell her more about herself as openly as she just had, and she couldn’t be gladder the detective had changed the subject instead. No matter how much she wouldn’t mind sharing her whole soul with the other woman, Alex knew that wasn’t the time to do so.

“It sounds great,” the assassin smiled, sighing contently at how easy it was to be by Maggie’s side, at how good it felt. _Damn, she was right, her couch is very comfortable_ , Alex thought as she lazily let her head rest on the back of the couch and looked over at her partner, who was ordering their dinner on the phone, her smile widening because Maggie was just so _beautiful_.

“Are you so tired you can’t even stay awake at the prospect of pizza?” the detective joked once she finished the phone call, having learnt over the past week that it was Alex’s happy food because it reminded her of her sister.

“I’m never too tired for pizza,” Alex replied, straitening up immediately and causing Maggie to chuckle in that way that made her eyes crinkle adorably. God, did she wish they could stay like that forever, revelling in the warmth of each other’s smiles, protected from the harshness of the world by stolen glances, brief touches and jokes that meant more to them than anyone else could possibly know.

Did she wish that night would last forever and she could sit by Maggie’s side for all eternity, knowing the most beautiful woman she had ever met was right there looking at her with that smile on her lips Alex found to be so marvellous that the most magnificent piece of art palled in comparison to it.

Did she wish they could stay in that little world of theirs and when the next day came she wouldn’t have to leave to look for the people who wanted to take Maggie away from her and put a bullet in their brains or die trying (for the first time, Alex was actually scared of what would happen to her on a mission, was scared she wouldn’t make it back to the safety of Maggie’s company, was scared she would never get to see her smile again or hold her hand or wear her police jacket when she was cold).

Did she wish everything was different and she could lean closer to her partner, rest her head on her shoulder instead of on the couch and not have not worry about how much the women she was growing to adore would hate her once she found out the truth, about how Maggie wouldn’t look at her like she did then, wouldn’t smile at her like she did then, wouldn’t touch her like she did then.

God, did Alex wish she had the right to love Maggie Sawyer.

“Hey, Maggie?” the assassin brought her partner’s attention from something that had been playing on the TV back to her, not realising she had spoken until Maggie turned to her.

“Yeah?” the detective asked as Alex swallowed down the words on the tip of her tongue neither of them were ready to hear yet and desperately looked for something to say that wasn’t _“I care so much about you”_ or _“You look so beautiful”_ or even _“Can I kiss you?”_.

“What’s the thing with the little trees?” Alex ended up asking as her eyes found one of the 10 plants she recalled having counted while she was taking in Maggie’s apartment.

“First things first: They’re called Bonsai trees, Danvers,” Maggie replied, following Alex’s gaze to one of the plants, her voice laced with mock offense as she shook her head.

“Of course, my mistake,” Alex playfully apologized, unable to stop her lips from curving into a smile once Maggie’s eyes lighted up and she started rambling about the plants.

“And they’re just so cute,” Maggie continued, her voice an octave higher than Alex expected it to be. “Don’t you think so?” the detective asked enthusiastically, grinning in that way that made Alex want to kiss her senseless.

“I – I mean, I get why you like them,” Alex offered, not feeling anything particular for the small trees but loving how Maggie got so excited talking about them. After all, she was a detective; she wore badass leather jackets and shot people; it really was adorable how her expression was suddenly filled with joy and her hands moved around as she talked. Alex simply couldn’t find the strength to stop her heart from leaping in her chest and her smile from widening to the point where she got worried it would never come off her face. How could anyone not fall in love with Maggie Sawyer when she was grinning like an idiot because of little trees?

“I’m sensing some scepticism, Alex,” Maggie said, suddenly turning serious for a moment before her lips were crossed by a dimpled smile once more.

“I just mean that I get it, they resemble you,” Alex joked, referring to how tiny both Maggie and the Bonsais were. One of the things she loved about the detective was how she could look so strong while working when she was the shortest person in the whole precinct and it would never fail to amuse the assassin how much she looked like a puppy in the oversized police jacket that had perfectly fit Alex.

“Are you calling me cute?” Maggie asked, her head tilting to the side as she grinned, making Alex pretty sure of the fact her knees would have gone weak and she would have fallen to the floor had she been standing.

“I uh- That’s not-” Alex mumbled, her eyes trained on the floor as her teeth sunk on her bottom lip and her cheeks heated up with embarrassment.  She was a goddam assassin, she put bullets in people for a living, how wasn’t she able to keep her heart from racing in her chest at the mere prospect of admitting she found Maggie cute?

“Relax, Danvers,” the detective chuckled to herself as she shook her head lightly in a way Alex could only imagine was her saying “ _Don’t try to deny it_ ”.

In any other circumstance, Alex wouldn’t even conceive the idea of saying she did find Maggie to be prettier than the galaxies, but there the detective was, bringing their shoulders together in a playful nudge, daring the assassin to pretend that spark she felt when they so much as sat by each other’s side wasn’t there.

And so Alex merely scoffed, rolling her eyes at Maggie’s grin before realising her lips were betraying her by mimicking the detective’s. Revelling in the warmth of Maggie’s gaze, Alex didn’t try to stop them from doing so.

“Remember me saying I finally found I can beat you at?” the detective asked, fully aware of the fact she hadn’t yet manage to win a single round of pool against her partner despite them playing almost every single day for hours.

“You mean when I sustained a head injury, but you were the one being delusional?” Alex teased, laughing at Maggie’s mock offended expression and muffled _“Shut up”_ , watching as the detective got up and reached for something on the coffee table before sitting back on the couch.

“This is what you thought you could beat me at?” Alex asked incredulously, an amused smile playing on her lips as she nodded towards the black controller Maggie was enthusiastically handing her. “Call of Duty?”

“You sound surprised,” the detective said, her expression unreadable to Alex’s eyes, which kept getting distracted by how soft Maggie’s lips looked and how easy it would be to run her fingers though her partner’s hair, pulling her closer.

“Didn’t think you’d spend your time killing fictional people,” Alex explained, “especially not with that weapon,” she added, frowning at the gun Maggie picked to end her life in the game.

“Bet you tomorrow’s lunch that this weapon is gonna help me kick your ass,” the detective said, grinning devilishly before pressing start, their characters coming to life on the screen.

“Oh you’re on, Sawyer.”

***

As it turned out, no matter how much Alex had been determined to prove to her partner she couldn’t be bet at a videogame, the assassin found herself muffling curses as they played. An empty pizza box and a couple of beers sat in the coffee table when Alex finally admitted defeat after getting shot in the head for the hundredth time, rolling her eyes at her character’s dead body on the screen.

“Giving up already, Danvers?” Maggie asked, her head tilted to the side as she offered Alex that teasing grin that never failed to get the assassin’s heart to skip a beat.

“Shut up, I almost had you,” Alex said, attempting to sound annoyed and failing miserably because how was she supposed to pretend to be mad when Maggie was looking at her with that spark in her eyes? Even though her ego was bruised (she was an assassin after all, she should have been able to beat a cop at a shooting game), Alex knew she would lose all over again if it meant she got to watch the detective smiling at her like that for even another second.

“Sure, Alex,” Maggie said, sarcasm dripping from her voice as she turned off the TV and set her controller on the table. The assassin was about to remark how their scores were pretty much the same before she noticed Maggie using her name, before warmth spread through her chest like wildfire and she found herself wanting her name to come out of her partner’s mouth again and again and again.

Or maybe she didn’t want to hear it at all; maybe all she wanted was to wipe the smugness out of Maggie’s grin with her own lips, letting them convey everything she wanted to say but couldn’t, everything she felt but wasn’t allowed to express, like how she wouldn’t mind waking up next to that same smile that made her heart race; or how she had been alive for 28 years but had never found someone who made her want to live for another 50 before Maggie; or how, even though she knew the terrible things she did didn’t deserve forgiveness, the detective made her believe there was a way to be better, to learn to live with the weight of the lives she had taken.

Because right there in the apartment of the woman she had pointed a rifle at ten days before, Alex had never felt so light. In that moment, watching Maggie beaming and knowing she was the reason behind the woman’s smile, the assassin allowed her fears to fade into the background of her mind and her heart to dwell on the feeling of Maggie’s shoulder brushing against her own as she moved.

Although she knew that situation was merely temporary and a part of her told her she shouldn’t let herself fall for the detective, Alex couldn’t bring herself to stop smiling as she watched her partner taking the controller she still held in her hands and placing it on the table. She couldn’t bring herself to care about how, once everything was over, Maggie Sawyer would probably be the end of her, not when the detective was brushing her thumb across her own and they were so close Alex could feel the rise and fall of the woman’s chest.

Alex bit her lip as she realised that was exactly what Maggie would be to her in the end of everything that was happening, that the woman she was growing to adore would be the one sending her crashing down into an abyss of despair that was yet unknown but predictable. After all, even once she made sure Maggie was safe and the people responsible for putting out a hit on her were dead or behind bars, Alex couldn’t expect whatever was flourishing between her and the detective to lead somewhere, could she? Because no matter how many soft touches they shared or how Maggie smiled every time she caught Alex looking at her from afar, the assassin’s identity would be revealed soon enough and, even if it wasn’t, she knew she wouldn’t be able to hide it away forever.

Alex’s chest tightened as she finally admitted to herself that one day she would have to leave Maggie’s life and although that was something she had known all along, in that moment, surrounded by the warmth of everything that was so much like the woman sitting next to her, by empty bottles of beer, by the city’s lights flooding the apartment through its windows, by the tiny bonsai trees that wouldn’t allow Alex to ever look at a plant without thinking of Maggie again, the thought of leaving the detective behind was unbearable.

Maggie must have felt her partner tensing by her side or noticed the way Alex’s hands closed themselves into fists since suddenly she was breaking the comfortable silence that had settled between them, her deep brown eyes shining with worry even through the darkness of room.

“Hey, you still with me?” the detective asked, bringing her hand to Alex’s jaw softly in order to get the assassin to look at her.

“Yeah,” Alex replied, nodding as if to make her point, her teeth finding their way back to her bottom lip as she noticed the unwavering concern in Maggie’s eyes. “Yeah, I’m just tired,” she mumbled as an excuse and if the detective taking a strand of hair between her fingers and locking it behind Alex’s ear carefully was any indication, she wasn’t buying it.

“Well, it’s getting pretty late so maybe we should call it a night” Maggie said, her hand falling from Alex’s face to her lap as she offered the assassin a way out of the conversation. Looking down at the watch on the detective’s wrist, Alex knew it wasn’t late at all, since it showed time to be only a little over ten p.m.

Sighing as she looked up to the ceiling, the assassin felt a sudden urge to _leave_ , to take a step back and detach herself from the warmth of Maggie’s body that was making it so much harder to think. Knowing that soon she wouldn’t be able to walk away from the woman sitting next to her, the little sense of self-preservation she still had left screamed at her to get up and jump out the window if that was what was needed to avoid the destructive future that awaited her in Maggie’s arms.

“Or maybe we could talk about what’s wrong,” Maggie continued quietly, her hands coming to rest over Alex’s fists, rubbing soothing circles over the assassin’s skin, and suddenly everything became too much and Alex just really had to _leave,_ because how could she talk to Maggie about what was causing tears to well up in her eyes when that would end up with her being thrown in jail by the woman currently looking at her with so much concern? How could she tell Maggie she was scared of losing her due to who she really was, what she really was, when the thought of the detective seeing her as the person responsible for all those deaths they had been investigating sent a stream of tears down her cheek?

_Rule number one: Don’t get attached_ , Alex heard Lena’s voice saying as her mind went back to those first months of training so many years before, giving the assassin the strength needed to take her hands away from Maggie’s and get up from the couch, murmuring a quick “I have to go” while hoping the room was dark enough that the detective couldn’t see the tears stinging her eyes.

“Wait,” Maggie protested, managing to reach the assassin just before she was about to open the door, grabbing her arm firmly and making her turn around. “Alex, what’s going on?”

“It’s nothing, I just- I have to go,” Alex replied, her voice as close to breaking as she had ever heard it and her eyes trained on the ground, looking at everything but Maggie. A soft hand came to lift her chin, forcing the assassin’s gaze to fall on the woman she was so determined on avoiding looking at. Her heart clenched in her chest as Alex noticed Maggie’s deep brown orbs staring at her, studying her with the attention and worry that she knew she didn’t deserve.

As Maggie’s thumb came to wipe away the hot tears staining her cheeks, a sob racked through Alex’s body, causing her to tremble and focus all of her energy on not letting let it leave her throat. Suddenly, Alex’s desire to leave was no longer fuelled by the fear of ruin at Maggie’s hands, but by the shame she felt in breaking down in front of the detective, by the terror that came with knowing she was so close to telling Maggie the truth that said ruin would be delivered to her in that exact moment when she wasn’t ready to accept it.

“Is it – Did I go too far with this?” Maggie asked, motioning to the space between then, referring to all the stolen touches and forbidden glances they had shared, to the reasons Alex had been smiling more in the past week than she had in the past year.

Alex furiously shook her head as an empty chuckle left her lips, because there she was before the woman whose loss she was already mourning, crying for everything she had done that destroyed any chances she had of being loved by the one person whose opinion of her actually mattered, and said person’s first thought was that she was the reason behind Alex’s pain, when she was, in fact, the reason behind her happiness.

The way Maggie’s hand fell to her side, lost and defeated, while her eyes dropped to the floor, deeply wounded, caused Alex to want to reach out, to caress her hair and plant soft kisses on her forehead while telling her she did nothing wrong. However, the tears blurring her vision and the tightness in her throat prevented her from doing any of that.

“’Cause if I did, I’m sorry, Alex,” Maggie apologised, getting Alex to shake her head once more and take a deep breath as she struggled to get her breathing back in control and the tears to stop falling down her face.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Alex managed to blurt out, her voice hoarse, mustering the courage needed to look up to Maggie in order to make sure the detective knew she meant it.

“Then what’s wrong?” Maggie asked softly, meeting Alex’s gaze, her eyes reflecting confliction as she fought against the need to step closer to her partner.

“I-,” Alex mumbled before a wave of tears started escaping her eyes and she was forced to bite down on her tongue in an attempt to make them stop. The “ _I don’t deserve you_ ” that was about to slip from her lips went unsaid, but if Maggie’s arms wrapping up around Alex were any indication, the detective heard it all too well.

“Talk to me, Al,” Maggie whispered against the fabric of Alex’s shirt, tightening her arms around the assassin’s waist to pull her impossibly closer as she rubbed soothing patterns across her back.

“I’m just – I’m sorry,” Alex said through a new wave of sobs that threatened to swallow her whole. Her hands came to fist Maggie’s shirt in an attempt to stay grounded as she allowed the detective to hold her. “I’m so sorry,” she said, repeating it again and again, glad the woman merely held on tighter and didn’t pressure to say more than that.

_I’m sorry for making you think you did something wrong; I’m sorry for lying to you; I’m sorry for falling for you; I’m sorry for agreeing to kill you; I’m sorry; I’m sorry; I’m sorry_ , was everything going through Alex’s mind until Maggie’s soft reassurances of “It’s okay” and “I’m right here” got her to stop shaking and, eventually, for her sobs to subside.

Before Alex could protest against it, Maggie was leading them to the couch, motioning for the assassin to sit down with her before she wrapped one of her arms around Alex’s shoulder, keeping her close, using her free hand to run her fingers through the assassin’s hair softly, carefully avoiding the bandage on her scalp.

“You did nothing wrong, Alex,” she whispered into Alex’s ear, wiping away the new couple of tears rushing down the assassin’s cheeks, causing Alex to want to scream, because she did do something wrong, she had done so many things wrong.

“It’s okay,” Maggie said, planting a light kiss on Alex’s hair while the assassin hid on the crook of the detective’s neck, taking in her scent as she took a deep breath. “I’ve got you,” Alex heard Maggie whisper before she allowed herself to melt against the detective’s body, no longer concerned with keeping Maggie’s shirt dry, the thought of how unfair this was for her friend pushed into the back of her mind as the exhaustion from the day finally caught up to her.

As Alex’s eyelids grew heavy and her breathing slowed down, the assassin unclenched her fists from Maggie’s shirt, an apology on the tip of her tongue, forcing herself to sit up properly before the detective’s brought her back to their embrace.

“Stay,” Maggie asked quietly, so quietly in fact that had Alex not been so close to her she would have missed the request and the vulnerability that came with it.

Although Maggie wasn’t insisting on knowing what was wrong right then, Alex knew she would own her an explanation once the morning sunlight invaded the apartment. However unsettling that thought was, Alex focused solely on Maggie’s eyes for the first time in that hour, focused on how conflicted and woundable Maggie’s voice sounded and couldn’t help but wonder if the detective needed this as much as she did.

Settling her head on Maggie’s chest, Alex closed her eyes and draped her arm around Maggie’s stomach, breathing the woman’s scent and allowing herself to be immersed in her warmth. With the detective running her fingers through Alex’s hair, sleep easily overtook her, reliving her from her thoughts and emotions, letting her feel nothing more than the reassuring rise and fall of Maggie’s chest.

The last thing Alex thought she heard before slipping into unconsciousness was Maggie’s steady heartbeat beneath her.

The last thing she thought she imagined was a quiet “Sleep well, Al” and the feeling of something soft coming to shelter her from the coldness of the night.

***

Opening her eyes, Alex immediately reached for the knife she kept beneath her pillow, frowning when she didn’t find it, her heart rate picking up once she didn’t recognise her surroundings. It wasn’t until her eyes settled on a tiny tree on a bookshelf that the previous night’s memories came back to the assassin and she remembered she was in Maggie’s apartment.

After kicking the warm blanket off her body and quickly folding it, Alex run her hands through her uneven hair and attempted to smooth the wrinkles in her shirt before a voice sounded behind her.

“Good morning,” Maggie said, smiling softly at the assassin as if a couple of hours before Alex hadn’t been crying on her shoulder like child. “One sugar, one cream, right?” the detective asked, handing her a cup of coffee and sitting at the kitchen island, waiting for Alex to follow.

“Thank you.”

“How’s your head?” the detective asked, pointing towards Alex’s bandage once the assassin frowned, not remembering the injury that came with the DEO-NCPD joined task force operation since she was too busy taking in the sight of a strand of Maggie’s wet hair lingering on her neck; of how great she looked in sweatpants and an old blue police shirt that allowed Alex to see Maggie’s lower abs; of how comfortable and at easy she appeared to be around the assassin that she let her work clothes go and showed this part of her that made Alex feel so at home.

“It feels fine. I should probably change the bandage though,” Alex replied, hiding her light smile behind her cup of coffee, because Maggie asked how she felt, because Maggie cared, because she could sense Maggie was worried about more than the cut on her scalp.

“There are clean bandages in the bathroom’s cabinet,” Maggie said, pointing towards a part of the apartment Alex hadn’t yet ventured through. “There are also some towels if you want to shower. You don’t have long though, it’s already 8 a.m.”

“Why didn’t you wake me up sooner?” Alex asked, shooting up her eyebrows when Maggie shrugged.

“You looked so peaceful sleeping; I didn’t have it in me to wake you,” the detective admitted, causing the corners of Alex’s lips to shoot up involuntarily before she remembered the reason she had been so tired the previous night and who had allowed her to sleep so well.

“Listen, Maggie, about last night-” Alex started before the detective interrupted her.

“You don’t need to apologise, Alex,” Maggie reassured, resting her hand above the assassin’s. “And you don’t need to explain yourself to me either,” she continued, squeezing Alex’s hand lightly. “I’ll be here when you’re ready to talk about it.”

Alex nodded, interlacing their fingers together as she drank her coffee in silence and Maggie read the newspaper. She couldn’t help but wonder how, in the middle of everything that was going on, she had managed to find someone as kind as Maggie Sawyer; couldn’t help but think that maybe being destroyed by the detective wasn’t that bad after all.

***

In the aftermath of the previous day’s operation, Alex and Maggie were forced to spend the most part of their day in the precinct, the several blank reports on their desks needing to be filled before the weekend. Across from the assassin, Maggie’s fingers run through her hair as she exhaled deeply, the pen on her right hand never leaving the paper although the detective’s eyes drifted towards her partner ever so often.

Once Alex had exited the bathroom back at Maggie’s apartment, she had found the other woman ready to leave, her sweatpants and shirt replaced by jeans and a white button-up, the assassin’s leather jacket in her hand. Slipping into her jacket once Maggie handed it over, Alex hadn’t been able not to notice just how domestic that morning had felt, how, from anyone else’s eyes, it would look like something they had been doing together for years.

Despite the apparent normalcy of it all, Alex couldn’t help but feel thrown off, the idea of Maggie bringing up the previous night’s events got her nerves of edge, while the thought of the detective not doing so bothered her to no end.

Chewing on the inside of her cheek, Alex watched her partner fill out her papers, a dark smudge of blue on the palm of her hand where she had tested her pen before starting writing. Alex’s hands were cold due to the precinct’s broken heater, so unlike how they had been in Maggie’s home, where they were firmly held by the detective, their scars caressed and knuckles traced by tentative fingertips.

As the sight of Maggie’s fingers rushing through her own hair faded into the one of the detective holding Alex close while murmuring reassurances into her ear, the assassin couldn’t help the sigh that left her lips. While a small part of her told her to focus back on her reports, the part of Alex that wanted to be able to freeze time in order to stay in the same moment for all of eternity didn’t allow her mind to push away the memory of Maggie’s body pressed to hers tenderly, of soft lips touching her forehead for the briefest of moments.

It had been so long since Alex had been cared for that she couldn’t help but wonder if it wasn’t all in her imagination, if the sad part of her subconscious that longed for love and forgiveness hadn’t taken upon itself to make the previous night up for Alex’s contentment.

She found herself praying it hadn’t; wishing the warmth of Maggie’s body under hers had been as real as her mind remembered it to be; wanting the affection of the detective’s actions to have been a part of both their evenings; desperately needing the safety and comfort she found in Maggie’s arms to be something she was capable of feeling.

After all, up until that morning, Alex hadn’t been sure she would ever be able of knowing what being adored by someone meant. And, although she wouldn’t call what Maggie felt for her adoration quiet yet, that didn’t change the fact last night had been the first in years where someone took care of her, where she let someone look after her.

Alex knew she would be lying if she said she hadn’t missed it, or if she pretended not to want to fall into Maggie’s arms right then and stay there till the end of time.

***

“Detective Danvers, there’s someone here to see you,” an officer said as he approached Alex’s desk, a blonde woman dressed in a light pink sweater following behind him.

Ignoring Maggie’s questioning look and putting down the report she was proofreading, the assassin got up and motioned for her sister to follow her outside, smiling at how little she had changed since she last saw her out of her Supergirl suit.

“Kara, what are you doing here?” Alex asked once they were both outside the station, the November wind ruffling through their hairs as the unusual autumn sun shone above them and the assassin remembered she hadn’t talked to her sister – Kara, not Supergirl – in over a year.

“You said you needed my help with finding your client,” Kara replied, her voice flattering slightly at the idea her presence wasn’t welcome, her expression clearly reflecting that work problems aside, she was there because she missed her sister. “Is it not okay for me to be here?”

“Oh, Kara, it’s fine,” Alex reassured, resisting the urge to take her little sister in her arms and hug the life out of her, a smile crossing her lips because Kara was there with her; because after hunting her for a whole year, Kara was talking to her and instead of lasers, her eyes were shooting concern. “I’m sorry, I just wasn’t expecting to see you so soon.”

“I would have called, but I don’t exactly know where you get a number for an assassin for hire,” Kara mumbled, fidgeting with the hems of her sweater and causing Alex’s throat to close in on itself. “But I didn’t blow your cover or anything, did I?” She asked, her lips pursed as if she was unsure of what to say, as if she was trying her best not to be affected by the fact she couldn’t just meet her sister at work like normal people did. “I mean, you’re probably not supposed to have a sister,” Kara rambled, a mix of sadness and disappointment shining in her eyes; disappointment Alex recognized as being directed at her, at what she had become.

“Don’t worry about it,” the assassin sighed, attempting to smile through the awkwardness of the situation as her teeth found their way into her bottom lip. “Did you find anything that can help?”

“If by anything you mean everything we need then yeah,” Kara grinned, the tension slipping off her shoulders as she brought her hand to Alex’s in order to lead them further away from any prying ears. “So remember when you told me your client put out a hit on Detective Sawyer because of a trial she was testifying at?”

Alex nodded, her gaze turning soft as she watched her little sister talk about the discovery she was so proud of, as a warm feeling settled itself on her chest and it became impossible to let go of Kara’s hand. Alex felt like everything was going to be okay as long as Kara’s eyes outshone the sun.

“I might have looked into that case,” Kara continued once Alex raised her brow. “She’s testifying in favour of someone who’s being set up and can identify the leader of CADMUS. Without her testimony, the guy will be found guilty and sentenced to death.”

“So Maggie’s testimony will save the one person that knows who the leader of CADMUS is?” Alex asked rhetorically, piecing the information in her mind, easily concluding the largest unsanctioned anti-alien organization in the city wanted her partner dead. “Does she know that?”

“Not as far as I can tell,” Kara replied, resting her hands inside her jean’s pockets while she studied Alex’s reaction. “I only know that ‘cause I heard J’onn talk about it at the DEO. But..” she trailed off, unsure of whether the next piece of information was something she should share with her sister, who was, by all means, one of the highest ranking criminals in Nacional City.

“But what?” Alex pressed, moving a strand of hair out of her face only to have the wind blow it back to where it was.

The assassin could sense her sister’s confliction, could feel her weighting the pros against the cons of telling her whatever she was about to. She wondered when had Kara grown so much, wondered if the time they lost since her sister had decided to wear her family’s coat of arms on her chest could ever be made up for.

“He’s not the only one who knows about the leader of CADMUS,” Kara mumbled, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “The DEO knows as well, but we haven’t been able to gather enough evidence to prove it.”

“Well, that’s easy to solve, I only have to get him to confess, right?” Alex asked hopefully, swallowing down the part of her that told her she could just put a bullet in the leader’s head and be done with him, reminding herself of the previous day where she had promised Kara she wouldn’t kill again.

“It’s not that easy,” Kara said, her eyes, which were until then bright, got suddenly clouded with apprehension. “It’s a high profile case, so everything has to be done by the book, according to J’onn,” she added, pausing momentarily in a way that told the assassin she wasn’t going to like what Kara was about to say. “Even if she confessed to putting out a hit on Detective Sawyer, you’d be exposed, Alex, you’d be arrested and-” she stopped, visibly swallowing down a lump on her throat, her voice cracking with concern for how it would all end for her sister.

“It’s fine, Kara,” Alex whispered, her teeth gritting as she pushed her head back to look at the sky and attempted to blink away the tears that came with knowing she was going to lose the best thing that ever happened to her after Kara. After all, was there any other outcome of this situation that allowed Alex to ensure Maggie’s safety while keeping her promise to Kara? The assassin didn’t think there was, or, at least, she couldn’t find one. In order to put the leader of CADMUS behind bars, she had to stand before a court and explain exactly how she knew they were criminals, she had to let the whole world see who and what she really was.

“We could try to get you a deal to reduce your sentence, I’m sure Detective Sawyer would be happy to help once she knew what you did for her,” Kara rambled while she watched Alex take a deep breath and cross her arms over her chest as if she was attempting to keep her emotions from spilling out of her.

“Kara-”Alex said, trying to get her sister to calm down, trying to get herself to calm down.

“But the NCPD has been chasing you for years; you’re one of the primary public enemies, probably considered more important than CADMUS, I don’t think they’ll-” Kara continued before Alex’s hand on her arm forced her to stop and look at her sister.

“Kara,” Alex said, her brown eyes searching for the Girl of Steel’s blue ones. “Breathe,” she instructed, giving her sister a moment to do so before she welcomed her in her arms and hugged her tightly, pouring all her fears into that embrace, hoping she was strong enough not to fall apart.

“Who’s the leader of CADMUS?” Alex asked once the few tears that fell down her cheeks were dry and Kara was no longer shaking in her arms.

“It’s Lillian Luthor.”

“Lena’s mother?” Alex asked, her eyes opening wider as she tried to process the implications of what Kara had told her, as she remembered the coldness in Lena’s voice when she talked about her mom and the awful things the CEO had told her about the woman.

“You know Lena?” Kara inquired, her voice suddenly defensive as if Alex’s mentor was someone special, someone that Kara didn’t want to share with her sister, not then and maybe not ever. Kara’s jaw clenched once Alex nodded in confirmation. “How?”

“That’s for her to tell you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alex just really needs more hugs tbh  
> Lena will finally be back on the next chapter and we may even get a bit of supercorp depending on whether you guys approve of it or not


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for all your comments and once again I apologize for how lazy I've been with updating this work  
> warning for severe fluff in the end of this chapter

Leaving Kara outside the precinct after agreeing to meet up with Lena that evening was one of the hardest things Alex had ever done. Screw being shot, or stabbed, or jumping off a bridge. Walking away from her little sister while her eyes were brimming with fear and heartache tore through Alex’s being like no bullet ever could.

After all, she had been the cause of all that pain, all that suffering; she had been the one who tainted the image Kara had of her friend by simply mentioning she knew her; she had been the one to make Kara go through all the possible explanations as to why the woman who made her smile like no other knew the assassin she once called sister. And even though Kara hadn’t pressed after Alex denied telling her about her relationship with Lena, she knew her sister came to a conclusion. A conclusion that sucked the comforting brightness out of Kara’s eyes and made her hands tremble.

Alex had always hated being reminded of how vulnerable her sister could be, of how things didn’t need to be made out of kryptonite to scar her. The people of Nacional City called Kara the Girl of Steel. They often forgot that even steel can get dented when it goes through too much strain. 

As she walked back to her desk, her fingernails digging into the palms of her hands, Alex couldn’t help but wonder when would everything her sister had been through, everything she would still have to go through, become too much for her to bear.

Focusing on the welcome weigh of her badge on her hip, on the whispers and shouts coming from officers around her and the way that, right there, with Maggie a couple of feet away, nothing seemed out of place, Alex tried to push past the feeling of her heart hammering in her chest.

Because she could almost picture her sister’s expression once Lena revealed her role in Alex’s training, could almost find an undeniable resemblance between that and the way Maggie’s face looked like in her worse nightmares. Because in a couple of days she would either be handcuffed in the back of a squad car, thrown into a dark cell by a secret government agency or fleeing the country, and all of those options had one thing in common that made Alex bite down on her lip until it bled. Because the next few days would be the last she would get to spend by a certain detective’s side, would get to look into deep brown eyes and feel the softness of their gaze.

But all of that became meaningless with the knowledge that Maggie would be safe, that Alex would be able to protect her one last time.

As she sat back at her desk, returning her pen to its rightful place between her fingers, Alex expected her hair to be dishevelled, her eyes puffy and the palms of her hands engraved with the shape of her nails. She expected Maggie to be shooting her a worried glance, swallowing down a question about the still wet tear tracks on her cheeks or flashing her that disarming smile that would make her heart melt just a little bit more.

She didn’t expect Maggie moving her small pile of unfinished paperwork to her desk and setting her chair next to hers before resuming working on her reports. Alex didn’t expect the warm hand that came to rest on her thigh, squeezing it ever so often as if she needed a reminder that it was even there. She didn’t expect her own hand coming to lie on top of Maggie’s, before the detective welcomed the assassin’s fingers between her own.

The part of her that had almost gotten her to leave Maggie to face her fate alone, due to a sudden urge of self-preservation, was quieter than ever before. Alex no longer feared what that could implicate, just like she no longer cared about how easily she decided to sacrifice her freedom for Maggie’s life

There was a time where the assassin wondered what her dad would have thought of her life choices. Alex knew he would be proud of this one.

***

Riding the elevator up towards Lena’s office with her sister by her side was something Alex didn’t ever think she would get to do and she had to admit that, if not due to the circumstances that made it possible, not having to climb dozens of flights of stairs in an attempt to keep her visits a secret felt pretty good.

Pushing away the close memory of Maggie’s soft hand caressing her own, Alex tried to focus on the task at hand, on the fact that Kara was currently pacing in the small space of the elevator in that way she only did when she was severely distressed and everything the assassin could do was stare ahead, her urge of reaching out to her sister silenced by the idea that wasn’t something she would appreciate.

It had only taken Kara a couple of minutes after they left the cold November air behind them and entered the now almost deserted L corp to start fidgeting with her glasses, her teeth finding their way to her bottom lip on their own accord, and so Alex knew she was nervous, terrified even. No matter how much she wanted to tell the superhero that everything would be okay, Alex refrained herself from doing so, knowing the lie wouldn’t even sound convincing to her own ears.

Instead, she allowed the image of an earth-shattering smile to appear behind her eyelids as she pressed eyes tightly shut and awaited the sound of doors opening to indicate they had arrived. Taking a deep breath, Alex tried to ease the way her throat was closing in on itself at the thought of what would happen once the elevator’s doors did open and Kara was exposed to the harsh truth of Lena’s side job.

Hiding herself from the world in the depths of her mind didn’t stop her heart from clenching in her chest, though. It didn’t stop Alex from going over everything else that was wrong in her life either. Like the way she really wanted to keep her eyes closed for all eternity if it meant she wouldn’t have to see Maggie’s face once she realised the person she had been wanting to put behind bars for _years_ was the same one she had held to sleep the previous night. Like the way the detective softly smiled at her before offering her company for the evening just so Alex wouldn’t have to be alone with whatever was bothering her and, no matter how much she had wanted to accept it, she had been forced not to, because she had to be right where she was then, by her sister’s side; because everything that was wrong was her own fault and she didn’t deserve not feeling bad about it.

With her mind running a mile a minute and a sigh escaping her lips, Alex’s last thought before the cold metal doors in front of her slid open was about how tired she was; about how she just wanted everything to freeze around her so she could breathe properly, so she could close her eyes and see nothing but the darkness that came with the peace she had longed to feel for so long.

The sting caused by her teeth taking out everything she was feeling on the inside of her cheek was the only thing keeping Alex from punching the elevator’s metallic walls before she stepped out of it, the familiar, comforting taste of blood the only thing she noticed as she walked further into Lena’s office before the CEO spoke.

“Alex, I wasn’t expecting you,” Lena said, grabbing her purse and a carefully arranged stack of papers, leading Alex to the conclusion she was about to leave, before her eyes settled on the person behind her fellow assassin. The older Danvers sister watched as Lena’s lips went from being pressed in an easy smile to drift apart as she gasped, her eyes reflecting confusion before they showed fear. “Kara.”

Stepping back to give her sister and her friend some space, Alex kept her eyes trained on the floor and her arms crossed over her chest as she listened to Kara muttering the question she had been fighting to get an answer for all day, her words tripping on themselves before they could be expressed accurately.

“How- How do you two- Why do you know my sister?” After the question was finally out of Kara’s mouth, Alex still refused to look up from the white carpet that partially covered the office, but she knew from the way her sister’s voice sounded that she was biting back tears. She also knew Lena’s expression was probably displaying the sort of panic Alex had only gotten to witness a short amount of times in all those years.

All Alex could hear was Lena’s sharp intake of breath and her own heart pounding as if it wanted to break out of the cage that were her ribs. The room was as silent as the assassins had ever heard it be, both mentor and disciple tightened their arms around themselves and prayed the clouds that had been taking over the city’s skies for the past days would return and fill the air with the noise of pouring water.

Feeling Lena’s eyes searching for hers, Alex finally looked up, expecting to find anger in the green eyes that thought her how to find peace in the most stressful of situations, to find only the kind of sadness that came with the knowledge that there was no way to escape the truth.

Alex hoped her gaze could convey how sorry she was, how she hadn’t meant for Kara to find out Lena wasn’t any better than her sister, how she didn’t even know it would matter that much until Kara’s voice was overcome with protectiveness once Lena’s name fell out of her lips. Alex also hoped, in a way she knew to be selfish and wrong, that the CEO would simply tell Kara everything as quickly as possible so it could all be over; so she could leave that room, which was suddenly too warm, too filled with tension, and step into the coldness of the night.

“You can tell me anything,” Kara whispered, her hand reaching out for Lena’s in the last attempt her conscience made of denying everything that was happening. Alex’s mind couldn’t help but go back to Maggie.

Would she be as scared of admitting the obvious truth as Kara was? The assassin didn’t think she would, at least she wouldn’t show it; not in the way Kara was, not with an apprehensive gaze and her hands curled into firm fists, but with a cold tone and brighter than usual eyes.

Would she sound as desperate as Kara did? Alex didn’t think she would, but then again, Lena meant more to Kara than the assassin could ever hope of meaning to Maggie, right? The stolen touches, soft glances and the way Maggie had held her oh so closely the previous night didn’t mean what Alex wanted them to mean, right? She silently wished it did, just as she silently wished it didn’t if it meant sparing the detective the pain Kara was going through right then.

“I can’t tell you this,” Lena muttered, a single tear rolling down her cheek and falling on the hand Kara was so eagerly holding before it was brushed away by Kara’s thumb.

The only thing on Alex’s mouth was her own blood, since her teeth kept punishing her flesh repeatedly, but she swore she could taste the salt of that same tear as if it was her own. And maybe it was. Alex didn’t really feel her eyes wet, but she didn’t feel anything besides the way it was getting harder and harder to force air in and out of her lungs, so she couldn’t really tell.

Out of need of respecting the pair’s privacy or of hiding her soul from the pain plastered on her sister’s, Alex’s gaze found its way back to the floor, her breathing too loud for her own ears and her feet taking silent steps towards the nearest wall, in which Alex searched for support.

It was a while before a quiet, vulnerable “Please” echoed in the large room that was Lena’s office, a while before Alex found the courage she needed to look up from the white carpet that vaguely reminded her of snow to her friend’s defeated expression and sister’s tearful blue eyes. But once she did, she never looked back down.

Because in front of her was the woman she had spent an year wishing she could talk to again, the girl she had grown up with and taught her how to be best she could, in every single circumstance. And that woman, wearing that famous S on her chest under her shirt, who could literally touch the sky in all her might and glory, was currently begging to be told the truth while a part of her just wanted the lie to last a little while longer. Alex’s chest ached at the thought of how strong her little sister had gotten, of how strong she had always been.

Knowing she had to do the right thing and push past her own issues and torments, Alex kept her gaze trained on Lena’s shaking hand, on Kara’s frown, in order to be there for her sister, for all the times she hadn’t.

And so she watched as Lena looked at Kara like Alex had never seen her look at anyone, with the kind of softness she knew was reserved for someone special, for someone who was more than a friend, more than a lover. She watched as Lena whispered the words that caused Kara to drop her hand as if it had burned her; the quiet “I was the one who taught Alex how to kill” that caused Kara to be washed by a wave of shock and betrayal more violent than any of them had thought it would be.

Alex watched as the silence in the room gave itself away to Kara’s accusatory “You turned her into this?” and her sister’s eyes were suddenly clouded with something far worse than sadness, something Alex had been the receiving end of one too many times and could only call disappointment.

Alex watched herself walk those couple of feet that separated her from the two women and softly resting her hand on Kara’s shoulder, remembering her Lena didn’t turn her into anything she wasn’t already, that it wasn’t the CEO’s fault Nacional City’s greatest hero had lost hers.

Alex watched as Kara flinched away from her touch and Lena’s make up was ruined by the small tears she tried to keep from falling, as her sister said something about believing Lena was good when no one else did, as she mumbled a quick “I thought you were better than your family.”

She watched as Lena allowed her knees to buckle, coming down to the soft carpet Alex had been eyeing, before the assassin caught her; she listened as a voice she wasn’t able to recognize as her own told Kara “She is”; she looked after Kara once she had turned around and disappeared in the quiet of the night through the balcony, the night sky turning suddenly brighter with the light blue Alex recognized as being the exact shade of Kara’s laser vision.

***

“Why did you bring her here?” It felt as if hours had passed before Lena’s voice ruptured the silence Alex had been so grateful for, her words as empty as the numbness that threatened to swallow Alex’s whole self.

“I didn’t know you two were so close,” Alex offered as an apology, her eyes darting to the glass walls behind them, taking in the city and the quiet of the night, the way everything was so bright when it was supposed to be as dark as the edginess Alex could feel settling between her and her mentor.

Lena’s mere watery humourless chuckle told Alex more than the sudden harshness and coldness of her stare ever could. Although the CEO’s eyes were still brimming with unshed tears, Alex understood that they wouldn’t be talking about what happened anytime soon; not when Lena was trying so hard not to blame her for it but the alternative was simply blaming herself; not when Alex would be in the exact same spot in a couple of days and thinking about it made her feel like she was going to puke; not when she could picture those same tears and the harshness and the coldness on big brown eyes that usually would be so soft, so warm.

“We- well, I needed your help,” Alex said, choosing to answer Lena’s question and finally getting to the point of her visit as she left the softness of the carpet, coming in contact with the iciness of the windows, motioning for Lena to follow.

Taking her friend’s raised brow and questioning gaze as a sign she could keep on talking, Alex told her about the trial Maggie would be testifying at, about CADMUS being implicated in that case and how Lillian Luthor was the one behind the criminal organization.

Lena’s expression reflected nothing and even the years Alex had spent by the woman’s side didn’t allow her to decipher what was going through her mind. The lack of response or surprise, though, told Alex everything she needed to know, told her Lena, the person who was supposed to be on her side, wasn’t.

If there was one thing Alex could gather from the slight twitch of her mentor’s lips and the firmness with which she kept her gaze focused on the skyline was that Lena already knew everything she had just been told; she already knew her mother was one of the people who was hunting aliens like Kara; she already knew who was trying to kill the only person who made Alex feel like she had a home.

And in that moment all Alex wanted to do was scream, let out everything she had been compressing inside her chest from the moment she had accepted those damned 2 million dollars with the promise of putting a bullet in Maggie’s head.

As she turned towards Lena, her hands curling form fists, Alex was faced with the same stoic expression and slightly less shinier eyes who noticed the anger in Alex’s, but did nothing to defuse it except daring her to use it.

If Lena had been anyone else, her blood would have already been staining that white carpet with bright red. But she wasn’t, fortunately or unfortunately, depending on the side of Alex’s conscious which won the battle for the control of her mind in that moment.

As her muscles tensed at the thought that Lena had purposely withheld vital information concerning Maggie’s safety, Alex had to force herself to breathe; because Lena was the woman who had given her a purpose all those years ago when Alex couldn’t spend a night without a bottle of scotch by her side; she had been the one to help the assassin put herself back together; she had been the one to teach Alex how strong she was, how much stronger she could become; she was the one Kara loved.

“So you want me to set up a meeting with my mother?” Lena asked, her tone laced with something Alex would call venom if she didn’t know any better.

(She did know better though, if her years by Lena’s side had taught her anything besides the art of killing was that they both tended to lash out when they were hurt. Alex felt the rage consuming her flattering, slowly fading away with each breath she took).

The assassin nodded, aware her voice was unable to produce any sound other than the ragged, drained scream that was still threatening to leave her throat.

“You just had to come and take what you needed, didn’t you? You always do,” Lena spoke quietly, her arms crossed over her chest as the last of her tears disappeared once she looked up at the ceiling.

“It was an accident, your name just slip out,” Alex replied once had found her voice, taking a second too long to grasp Lena’s chain of thought, to understand she was implying Alex put her needs before her friend’s.

Suddenly, she wanted nothing but to fill the air with screams once more; because she knew Lena was hurt, she knew Lena didn’t really blame her as much as she blamed herself, but everything Alex was doing was to save this beautiful, amazing, strong woman who made her feel like she deserved the world; because what had just happened with Kara was something set into motion the moment Lena decided to pick Alex as her disciple; because Kara deserved the truth and, although Alex would happily take all the pain that came with said truth so her sister and her friend wouldn’t have to, she couldn’t.

“An accident that cost me Kara,” Lena scolded, her voice rising in tone and emotion, the walls she had built so well around her heart momentarily turning to dust. Alex was forced to look away as the CEO’s glare burned through her, as everything that was happening became too much.

Mumbling a quiet “I’m sorry” before she turned around and left the view of the city, that she used to love before that day, behind, Alex’s sole thought was the one that had been haunting her from the moment she walked into Lena’s office, the same one that had preyed upon her conscience that night at Maggie’s apartment and screamed that when everything felt like it was unbearable it was better to just _leave_.

The former assassin didn’t realise she was running until she was five flights of stairs from reaching ground level, since her throat burned as badly due to her lungs fighting for air as it did due to the screams that had never left it, but wanted to, needed to, so desperately; since the sting she felt in her muscles was so similar to the one she felt on her heart; since the exhaustion that came from the physical strain was intangible when compared to the that had been following her for the past few days.

In need of escaping faster than her body allowed her too, Alex’s mind carelessly lead her thoughts back to a collection of memories, vividly imprinted on her brain, unknowingly labelled _Safe Place_.

On the beginning of her training with Lena, Alex had been asked to create a place inside her mind where she could find refuge from the outside world, from the emotions that would threaten to take a hold of her and not let go. Up until a week ago, that place had been the star filled sky and the tormented sea.

Alex wasn’t even surprised that had changed, but, at the same time, was kept so untainted. As tiny drops of sweat trickled down her temple, Alex found herself picturing warm brown eyes, so vast and so full of wonder that she couldn’t help but recognize galaxies in them. The flowing motion of water on white sand had been replaced with a smile that put Alex’s whole being on edge, but still made her feel as washed by waves of peace as the sea did. Suddenly, the feeling of floating with salty water surrounding her was dull compared to how Alex felt like she could fly when Maggie held her hand.

_Maggie was her safe place._

Instead of bringing the peace it usually did, thinking of Maggie merely made Alex’s heart beat faster, her chest ache harder and her nails to press further into her flesh.

Because the idea of having to leave Maggie behind was not simply a hypothesis anymore as much as was is a certain future reality and the thought of never seeing her again, of never getting to touch her again sent a shiver down her spine. Because she wasn’t ready for those memories of stolen touches and heated glances being replaced by the feeling of cold metal on her wrists or angry glares coming from eyes that should be soft. Because she wasn’t ready to lose the only person she had ever loved besides her sister, wasn’t ready to let Maggie go without her knowing just how much she meant to her partner.

Walking out into the street without a route, Alex didn’t care that she left her bike outside of L-corp in a night where it would certainly rain, just like she didn’t care her nails were drawing blood from her palms or her face was wet with not yet dried tracks of tears.

With the cold wind ruffling through her hair, Alex didn’t realise she was standing outside of Maggie’s apartment building until she caught that glimpse of a leather jacket under the streetlamp’s light, until she saw the detective park her bike and head inside and had to fight against her desire to follow.

Once Alex finally got her feet to walk back towards her apartment, she couldn’t help but think maybe she should have made her presence known, maybe should have called Maggie’s name from across the street, get those big, brown eyes to look at her. If she had, maybe instead of a knife, her fingers would be grasping Maggie’s hand; instead of sitting alone on the edge of a bed she felt to be too big and empty, she would be lying in the warmth of Maggie’s embrace.

And maybe then Alex could have run her fingers through Maggie’s hair before they came down to trace the outlines of her lips; maybe Alex could have kissed her cheek and mumble soft words against her ear; maybe Alex could have felt like she could finally rest, like she had finally gotten to a safe place that existed outside of her head.

***

By the time Alex had managed to step into the warmth of her own apartment, leaving the icy night air behind her, her heart was beating steadily on her chest and her breath was no longer getting caught in her throat, giving the former assassin the reassurance she needed to stop her hands from shaking and bile from rising in her throat.

Feeling one of her phones vibrating inside her jacket, Alex fished them out to find the one Lena used to contact her blinking with an unseen text message.

**From Lena** (22:04): _The meeting will happen Sunday at 10._

Alex had to run her eyes over the screen over and over again to assimilate the information. _This is really happening_ was everything Alex’s mind could think of as she took a shaky breath and tried to accept that in two days it would all be over: the lying, the pretending, the worrying about Maggie’s safety.

**To Lena** (22:07): _Thank you._

Alex couldn’t push away the idea that in two days everything would also begin. No matter how eager she was to sacrifice her freedom for Maggie’s life, Alex couldn’t help but start to feel a tightness in her chest she easily identified as fear.

**From Lena** (22:08): _There’s no need to thank me, I’m not doing this for you._

The added tension between her and Lena was also making it harder for Alex to simply think. Because she was supposed to be thinking, supposed to be trying to find a way to keep herself from going to prison, from leaving the little she had behind. At least, that’s what that small part of her that Alex called self-preservation, the one that had almost kept her from knowing how Maggie’s lips felt against her forehead, was telling her.

Attempting to push the exhaustion she felt settling deep into her bones away, Alex focused on trying to find a series of events that wouldn’t end with her handcuffed, standing before a judge. She let out a groan as she found herself unable to think of anything that wasn’t Kara’s disappointed look, as she sat beside Maggie, in the room where Alex would be sentenced to spend the rest of her short-lived life behind bars. Despite Kara’s optimist, Alex doubted her efforts to save a detective’s life would get her anything other than a way out of a lethal injection.

Alex had to stop her fists from flying to the nearest wall as uneasiness gave away its place in her chest to frustration. Taking a deep breath and brushing a strand of hair away from her face, Alex tried to convince herself the following day would be enough time to come up with a solution. She urged the idea that it would also be the last day she had before Maggie found out the truth to leave her mind.

It didn’t. Especially not once Alex’s phone vibrated against the table she had settled it on and definitely not when she unlocked it only to find 3 unread texts and 2 missed calls from the woman evading her thoughts.

  **From Maggie S.** (19:23): _If you change your mind about hanging out I’ll be at the bar._

**1 missed call from Maggie S.**

**From Maggie S.** (20:55): _I know you said you were busy, but is everything okay?_

**1 missed call from Maggie S.**

**From Maggie S.** (23: 16): _You’re starting to worry me, please call me back._

No matter how much Alex wanted to press the tiny phone icon next to Maggie’s name, she knew is couldn’t. No matter how much she wanted to wait those precious moments before Maggie picked up, the line came alive and the usual “Sawyer” sounded in her ears, Alex knew her partner’s voice with be enough to send tears flowing down her cheeks and being overcome with emotion was not what she needed. No matter how much Alex would love to hear the way Maggie’s voice would soften once they went past pleasantries and or feel the way her chest would suddenly lit itself on fire as she heard her favourite laugh on the other side of the line, she knew talking to Maggie would merely remind her of how much she would be losing in two days.

And so Alex put her phone back down on the wooden table and watched its screen go black after staring at that little phone icon next to the name of the person she had grown to adore for a moment too long. She walked away from the table and sat on the floor where cases of weapons urged to be opened, urged to have their contents taken out and fired.

As Alex dismantled the rifle she had pointed at Maggie’s head all those nights ago, determined on getting rid of it and all the memories it brought her, she ignored the faint buzz of her phone, ignored the way the screen lit up in the darkness of her apartment and the scream she found needing to be released from her throat once more.

She worked on cleaning the rest of her weapons, telling herself “no killing” didn’t mean “no violence”, finding a certain soothing serenity in the thought she would soon be able to scratch the itch her fingers felt to press a trigger.

She ignored the idea it would be the last time her hands held a pistol between them.

The next time her phone buzzed, Alex didn’t even bother looking up from the gun in front of her to the lit up screen, didn’t even bother getting up and reading the texts she wanted to reply to so much, didn’t even try to stop the tears welling up in her eyes from falling down to the cold metal of her gun.

***

As the lazy late afternoon sun shone through the windows of Alex’s small apartment, the assassin had to stop herself from pacing around every five seconds. The restlessness that came from having nothing to do on a weekend off combined with the possibility that day could be the last she was free caused Alex to feel even more anxious than she had been feeling already.

Combing her hair with her fingers absentmindedly, Alex looked over at the guns displayed on the coffee table that had already been cleaned twice. Walking closer to the bathroom’s mirror in her underwear, the assassin eyed her figure on the glass, noticing the bags under her eyes caused by a sleepless night. She couldn’t help but find the scars painting her skin invasive, a reminder of what she was so desperately trying not to be.

After waking up from a nightmare with her hairline drenched in sweat and her heart racing in her chest, Alex had gotten herself to finally look at Maggie’s messages. She had been overcome with guilt due to not having responded, due to not having taken the time to text Maggie a simple “I’m fine” and instead leaving the amazing woman, who had held her while she cried the previous night, to worry.

By then, Alex’s phone had stopped buzzing. She couldn’t determine whether that was a good thing or not. A part of her wanted Maggie to keep texting, wanted to read the words that made her feel like she was important enough to the detective to be missed, like she was worthy enough to have someone as good as Maggie worrying about her. The other part of her, the one which was rational and had been mostly clouded by the wave of emotions going through her, knew wanting to keep hearing from Maggie was selfish, was something she didn’t deserve, something she shouldn’t hope for.

Yet, her heart clenched as she got dressed in basic jeans and a plaid shirt, the idea of not getting to hold Maggie’s hand ever again too much for it to bear. After all, no matter what happened to her, whether it was jail or having to flee the country, Alex knew Maggie was the one thing that would always be in her mind. She knew she would miss that dumb smile the detective gave her when she got excited about something; she knew she would long to see the way Maggie would scrunch her nose when drinking coffee that was too bitter or too cold; she knew she would feel the absence of a comforting hand on her thigh every time she sat down and the loss of someone who Alex, if she was any other person, would call soulmate.

Not being one to believe in goodbyes, Alex had held off on deciding whether she wanted to see Maggie one last time. The assassin could only reread the detective’s messages so many times, could only clean her weapons or go on runs so many times, before the need to see the pair of eyes that made her heart leap with joy became too intense to ignore.

And so Alex found herself walking down to the coffee shop she knew Maggie loved, her fingers tracing the inside of her wrist as they went over the watch Alex hadn’t worn in years, the one that belonged to her father and had his favourite constellation as background.

Time had always been one of the things Alex hated the most in the universe. She had learned away too early of its implications, of how everything depended on it, of how there was never enough of it. There hadn’t been enough time for Alex to spend with Jeremiah all those years ago, just like there wasn’t enough time for Alex to spend with Maggie then and that comparison alone made Alex’s stomach turn upside down.

Because none of them were dying, Alex’s sole purpose was making sure Maggie got out of this safe and sound, without a scratch on her body, but it still felt like it was the same. As light rain started falling around her, the tiny drops of water catching her hair and ranting useless the efforts Alex had gone to keep it straight, the assassin swallowed down a series of curses.

Suddenly, Alex’s only thoughts were about how foolish it had been to ignore Maggie’s texts, how dumb it had been to not greet her from the other side of the street, how annoyingly stupid it had been not to go to her as soon as she woke up.

Alex’s teeth found the inside of her cheek as she realised how much time she had wasted and could not get back. With tears brimming in her eyes, the assassin thought of the time she could have spent committing to memory every feature of Maggie’s face, every line that marked the palms of her hands, every freckle, every scar.

Getting Maggie’s coffee order at the shop (because yeah, she had only gotten Maggie coffee once, but she knew it by heart and swore to be something she would never forget), Alex pushed back the tears that threatened to fall from her eyes with the back of her hand.

It wasn’t long before she reached Maggie’s apartment block, the low and unwarming sun disappearing behind the horizon as it painted the sky with multiple shades of orange. Maggie’s name was running through Alex’s mind like a mantra, making it impossible for the assassin to care about anything other than the fact this would be the last time she would see the woman she wished she could have spent the rest of her life with.

Letting herself in the building after someone exited, Alex climbed the quick flights of stairs that lead to Maggie’s apartment, resting her forehead against its door, hoping the coldness of the wood would allow her to take a much needed breath.

As she lifted her hand to knock, Alex’s teeth sank on her bottom lip, her own blood flushing in her ears from how fast her heart was hammering against her chest. It felt like an eternity had passed between the seconds it took for her fist to hit the deep brown door and fall down to her side.

As the door slowly opened to reveal the pair of piercing brown eyes Alex swore to be as deep as the sea, the assassin’s breath got caught in her throat, the sight of Maggie being to Alex what water was to those of had travelled the desert for months.

Making it her most important mission to notice every single detail of that moment, from the way Maggie’s hair fell softly on the old police academy sweatshirt to the fact her sweatpants were just a little bit too long, but the detective looked so, so beautiful, Alex didn’t notice she had been spoken to until her eyes moved up towards Maggie’s lips – god, those lips that Alex knew she would to be able to trace, to caress, to kiss until the end of time – and saw them move.

“Alex? Alex, are you okay?” Maggie said softly, her hand coming to brush Alex’s hair away from her cheek, her touch so light the assassin barely felt it. And maybe the movement allowed the detective to notice the bags under Alex’s eyes or the tears they were fighting so hard to blink away, but her voice became impossibly more delicate, impossibly more vulnerable. “I was so worried about you.”

Alex shook her head lightly. She couldn’t be farther from okay, not when she was about to lose everything, when she was about to lose _Maggie_. Maggie, who was looking at her like the day had become as dark as the night due to the possibility of Alex being anything other than fine; Maggie, whose calls had gone unanswered and texts unreplied, but still had no trace of anger on her voice and kept running her hands through Alex’s hair as if she knew Alex needed convincing that she was there; Maggie, who looked so incredibly beautiful with her oh so shiny eyes that Alex couldn’t understand how she wasn’t portrayed in every single piece of art ever created by mankind (she looked as heavenly as an angel and Alex’s mind really couldn’t picture a reality besides her own in which whole museums weren’t dedicated to Maggie Sawyer’s beauty).

“Oh sweetie,” Alex heard Maggie whisper before she was enveloped in the detective’s strong arms. Alex’s quiet sigh of relief didn’t go unnoticed to Maggie, who started rubbing soothing patterns at the small of Alex’s back, letting her head rest on the assassin’s chest.

Knocking on Maggie’s door was supposed to be a chance for Alex to say goodbye, to take in the wonder that was Maggie Sawyer one last time before she walked away forever. Surrounded by the warmth of Maggie’s body, by the soft scent of shower gel and freshly laundered clothes, Alex couldn’t think how she would ever be able to walk away from Maggie.

As the detective pulled away only to grab Alex’s carefully and carefully lead her inside the apartment, the assassin was raided by the need of having Maggie remember her as she was then, with her damp hair falling down her cheeks in smooth waves due to the rain, her cold hands holding Maggie’s as if they were the most prized possession on the planet and her eyes so vulnerable Maggie would be able to see everything Alex had ever hidden behind them if she just looked at them.

In that moment, everything stopped existing inside the assassin’s mind apart from her, Maggie and the sudden urge to have the detective see her for who she was without a badge she didn’t deserve or a gun she shouldn’t have learned how to use.

Alex’s only thought as she sat by Maggie’s side on the couch, their thighs pressed together as support for their interlaced hands, was that she needed Maggie to have a memory of her that would be able to survive the next day’s events, that would be able to tell the detective, even after her face was plastered on every newspaper, that what happened between them was real, that what Alex felt for her was real, that Maggie was able to turn an assassin in someone whose heart was no longer stone cold.

“Talk to me, Alex,” Maggie asked, her thumb going over the nail-shaped cuts on Alex’s hands, caressing them so carefully Alex’s heart couldn’t help but clench in her chest.

“I can’t,” Alex whispered, her free hand coming to graze Maggie’s cheek in an attempt to show that she wanted to, more than anything else, but doing so would cut the time they had together even shorter, would make it impossible for Alex to keep Maggie safe.

“You can tell me anything,” Maggie reassured, flashing her a concerned smile that was so bright Alex was forced to close her eyes.

“I don’t wanna lose you just yet,” Alex said so quietly she was almost sure Maggie hadn’t heard her until she felt soft lips pressing against her forehead and heard a reassuring “You won’t” next to her ear.

Alex let a watery humourless chuckle leave her throat as a tear run down her cheek just in time for Maggie to catch it and wipe it away. Opening her eyes, Alex found Maggie looking at her with something she would only describe as adoration, something she had never seen directed at her, something that made her heart skip a beat and her cheek lean softly into Maggie’s touch.

Reaching for a loose strand of hair falling over Maggie’s right eye and pushing it behind her ear, Alex allowed her hand to trace the outlines of Maggie’s jaw, the back of her neck; allowed her gaze to fall upon Maggie’s lips and her face to lean closer and closer.

Before she knew it, her eyes were falling closed again due to Maggie softly squeezing the hand she was still holding, her lips grazing Maggie’s so softly that if her senses weren’t on high alert Alex was sure she wouldn’t have felt them.

The quiet whimper coming from Maggie’s throat was all the reassurance Alex needed to move closer, to press tighter, to catch Maggie’s lips with her own and tug softly at her hair. Suddenly the only thing that existed was Maggie; the only thing that mattered was Maggie.

Nibbling down on the detective’s bottom lip, Alex moved her hand from Maggie’s hair to her hips so she could pull her impossibly closer. The air around them was filled with shaky intakes of breath and low hums and Alex couldn’t be happier.

If another tear fell down Alex’s cheek as Maggie parted her lips, allowing their tongues to move harmoniously against one another, none of the women seemed to notice it, too focused on each other to give importance to something that wasn’t the way their lips softly danced around each other.

Alex’s heart was beating loudly in her chest, but she could barely feel it, her mind too focused on the tiny gasp she received from Maggie once her teeth found their way to the woman’s bottom lip. Suddenly, everything was about Maggie and Maggie was everywhere, on her lips, on her cheek, on her jaw, on her neck; and all Alex could do was pull her closer and closer until Maggie was straddling her lap, her hair falling softly on Alex’s face as she leaned in for another kiss. A kiss that was much softer than Alex expected it to be; a kiss in which Alex gave Maggie everything she had, every bit of adoration, every bit of devotion.

“I have been wanting to do that,” Alex mumbled absentmindedly once they were both forced to pull back for air, their foreheads leaning against each other. Maggie’s chuckle got Alex’s already huge smile to become even wider, because right then, right there, nothing else mattered but the two of them, nothing else mattered but the way Maggie was looking at her, her eyes shining brighter than they ever had.

When Maggie leant closer once more Alex finally understood why Plato once said “At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet”, because right then she swore she could write hundreds of sonnets based singly upon that moment.

As Alex was invaded by a sudden urge to _feel_ Maggie, her hands started wondering lower and lower until they were able to slip beneath the navy blue sweater keeping their bodies apart. Looking up towards Maggie in order to ask for permission to take the offending piece of clothing away, Alex found her already nodding in agreement, lifting her arms to make the task easier.

With Maggie’s hair falling down in front of her breast as Alex’s hands run down both sides of her body, Alex swore she had never seen anyone as beautiful as the woman hovering above her, looking softly at her before pushing her hair behind her back and allowing Alex to take her in.

“You’re gorgeous,” Alex whispered, her eyes filled with wonder and she tentatively traced the soft curves of Maggie’s abs. Maggie’s light chuckle echoed in the room as she moved her lips to nip on Alex’s pulse point, just above the collar of her shirt.

Alex’s fingers rushed to undo the buttons keeping Maggie away from her collarbones before they were stopped by Maggie’s hands.

“Are you sure?” She questioned softly, her fingers lacing with Alex’s before they came to brush her partner’s cheek. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

Alex’s nod was everything Maggie needed to move from Alex’s lap and lead her to the bedroom, where she traced every scar marking Alex’s skin, where she kissed every sensitive spot on Alex’s body as if she had been doing it all her life.

As Alex’s moans filled the room and the red marks on her neck turned a shade darker, her hands found their way into Maggie’s hair. As reluctant as she was to give up the feeling of Maggie’s lips against her own, if Maggie’s name repeatedly falling from her lips was any indication, giving it up had its rewards.

As soon as she recovered enough from the wonders of Maggie’s tongue, Alex made it her personal mission to worship Maggie’s body and so, between soft white sheets and the warmth that irradiated from Maggie’s skin, Alex found the perfect place to show devotion; she had never been particularly religious, but with Maggie’s body shaking beneath her, with her oh so quiet moans and gasps for air becoming music to her ears, Alex found she wouldn’t mind spending the rest of her days serving whoever created Maggie Sawyer.

***

Alex had never felt as loved as when she was lying in bed with Maggie’s head on her chest, her finger combing through the other woman’s hair as their breaths evened out and a thin layer of sweat covered their bodies.  She had never felt as loved as when Maggie traced the dark pink scar that ran on her stomach with the softest of fingertips and placed a kiss on her the spot right above her heart.

As she held Maggie close in her arms, Alex’s thoughts couldn’t be further away from the next day’s events and their consequences. As Maggie hummed softly against her neck in the quiet of the night, Alex’s thoughts couldn’t be further away from _that_ day’s events and their consequences.

And that was why, once Alex woke up to the soft sound of rain falling outside in the warmth of a bed that smelled so much like home, she couldn’t understand why there was no one by her side or why one of her wrists was cuffed to the headboard and her eyes opened to see the barrel of a gun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> andddd that's how I ruin all the progress made in that last scene with a sentece  
> hope you guys like this chapter and you're ready for the angst that is to follow


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for this chapter being shorter than usual, but between school adn trying to have a social life I've been left with little time to write  
> once again thanks to all those who commented on the previous chapter, I hope you're ready for an emotional rollercoaster

Out of all the things Alex had imagined she would do on her last morning of freedom, attempting to slow her breathing as her heart insisted on hammering furiously against her chest was definitely one of them. What she hadn’t predicted was that it would be due to waking up with a gun pointed at her, the cold metal of a pair of handcuffs digging painfully into her skin as she pointlessly tried to free herself in a brief moment of panic.

Removing a few strands of hair from her face with her free hand, as her fingers trembled more than she would like to admit, Alex fought the overpowering feeling of nausea creeping up her stomach, forced her lips to part in order to take in less shallow gulps of air.

Alex had always known this was a possible ending to her story; she had never, however, let herself believe it would actually happen. Ultimately, this ending was what her worse nightmares were made off, it was what a devilish part of her subconscious compelled her to see while she slept; this ending was the reason Alex had woken up with wet tear tracks on her cheeks so many times the previous week, her whole body shaking so severely she had been unable to move.

Sadly, if those nightmares made her believe in something it was that she wasn’t strong enough to get through whatever was about to happen. After all, there was a reason she woke up with her hair damp in sweat and her hands grasping the sheets beneath her: she never actually beat the dream to sleep through it. The ex-assassin couldn’t help but wonder what would happen now that her torments turned themselves into reality.

Her eyes were suddenly stinging with unshed tears and Alex was forced to remove her gaze from the unwavering weapon to the ceiling as she hastily blinked them away. Battling the uncontrollable wave of gutting fear that washed over her, Alex wrapped the silky white sheets covering her naked body around herself tighter, as if they could protect her, as if they could stop not the bullets, but the gaze of the person controlling them from piercing her skin.

She had by then given up on freeing herself from the metal bracelet bounding her to the headboard of Maggie’s bed, even though she knew she would be able to if she tried harder, merely because the tiniest bit of fight she had still left in her vanished once her gaze found the one of the person behind the gun.

As she looked deeper into the person’s eyes, Alex finally understood what people meant when they said it was possible to drown without water, because suddenly all the effort she had put in getting her breathing under control was rated useless and she was fighting for air all over again. Alex’s throat closed in on itself, her lungs were on fire and she could feel the tears shimmering on her eyes, begging her to let them fall; and she knew she could get it all to stop if she just looked away, but she found herself unable to avert her gaze.

Because she had only once seen the woman above her look at her like that when she was hidden behind a helmet and now there was nothing separating her from the hostility clouding brown eyes that used to be warm; because not even in Alex’s worse nightmares had those eyes held so much coldness, so much rage, so much of everything that was supposed to make her think their owner wasn’t crumbling with the kind of crushing pain one could only feel with the aid of betrayal; because everything was so deeply and unmistakeably _wrong_ and Alex had never fooled herself with the possibility of them getting to have a happy ending, but she knew for certain that the universe would allow them to have something better than this; because she knew she deserved every bit of the heart-shattering sorrow that was making it impossible to look away, while the woman struggling to keep the gun steady as she watched Alex break deserved nothing but everything Alex couldn’t give her.

Because everything was _wrong, wrong, wrong._

No matter how much easier it was to blame the universe for presenting her with the only turn of events she couldn’t handle, Alex knew she was responsible for the way the hard metal of the handcuffs had caused small cuts on her wrist, just as she was for the bruises on Maggie’s heart. The feeling of helplessness that overtook her as she stared into Maggie’s eyes, for what could have been hours, left Alex torn between the need to scream and to look away.

“Cuff your other hand to the headboard,” Maggie managed to get out after throwing another set of handcuffs onto the bed, her voice harsher than Alex had ever heard it, hoarser than she expected it to be and definitely more broken than it should have been.

Alex’s lips parted as the she tried to come up with something – _anything_ – that could wash the pain off Maggie’s features; that could erase betrayal hidden behind the number of walls the detective had put up in a desperate attempt of self-preservation.

All that left Alex’s throat and escaped her lips was a sob, one that shook her whole body like a tidal wave and left her gasping for air. Ignoring the gun pointed at her and instead choosing to look up to Maggie as her free hand patted the empty bed next to her, searching for the familiar coldness of the restraints, Alex knew she should be trying to explain herself, trying to get Maggie to understand she wasn’t the person she had read about on so many police reports anymore.

“I’m so sorry,” was all she was able to mutter before the way the detective’s features were suddenly ignited with anger became too much for her to bear and she was forced to look away.

“You’re sorry? You killed all those people and you’re sorry?” Maggie nearly yelled as her knuckles turned white from holding her service weapon too tightly. “You have to give me so much more than that, Alex,” she said, her voice cracking at the end of the sentence, causing the retired assassin to feel her chest tighten.

A quiet “I’m a detective, I should have known,” escaped her lips as she shook her head with disappointment Alex knew to not be merely directed at her.

As Alex messily tried to cuff her free hand to the headboard, her tears now falling silently from her eyes, leaving wet tracks down her cheeks that shone with the soft morning light coming from the windows, her teeth found their way to her bottom lip and sank down.

The anger, the coldness and the hatred were things Alex had expected from the moment she opened her eyes. The guilt and regret on Maggie’s voice however, that was something she hadn’t been prepared for. As she tasted her own blood on her tongue, savouring the metallic taste, Alex wondered how she had been blind enough not to see it coming, because Maggie was just that good, because of course she would blame herself for not discovering a trained assassin had been working by her side for the past two weeks.

“How did you find out?” Alex asked softly, wishing she could get up, welcome Maggie into her arms and tell her time and time again she hadn’t done anything wrong. No matter how easy it would have been to free herself from the handcuffs with the hairpin she always kept on her, throw away the gun Maggie was still pointing at her and do just that, Alex refrained herself from moving, knowing she couldn’t break Maggie’s trust any further, knowing the little emotional support she had to offer would never make up for the pain she had caused.

“Your scars. Well, the one that isn’t quite healed yet,” Maggie stated simply after a few seconds went by, her voice back to its initial neutral tone. The detective’s pursed lips and stiff posture told Alex she was trying her best to keep it that way and if anything, no matter how selfish it was, Alex was grateful for the effort she was putting into it.

“I guess I had thought about it once or twice, but I couldn’t find a motive for your involvement with the NCPD so I pushed away the idea,” Maggie said, shaking her head with visible regret before continuing. “But then last night I- I saw the scar and it matched the stab wound we knew our suspect to have perfectly,” Maggie swallowed, taking a deep breath and Alex found herself doing the same, trying to push away the thoughts of why Maggie had gotten to see her skin so closely in the first place; of how a moment of intimacy and affection, which Alex swore to be the best thing to ever happened to her, was what ruined her relationship with the woman she cared so much for.

As the memories from the previous night flashed behind her eyelids, Alex’s heart clenched in her chest. She could still practically feel Maggie underneath her fingertips and it was as if the detective’s taste had never really left her mouth. Surrounded by the smell of Maggie’s soft perfume and fruity shampoo, Alex forgot about the handcuffs cutting into her wrists and the gun pointed at her head, ready to fire. Suddenly, all she could see was the mix of emotions reflected on Maggie’s eyes and the way the woman she was now sure she loved was trying so hard not to fall apart. She deserved an explanation and no matter how much it would hurt to provide her one, Alex was determined to give Maggie whatever she still had left.

“I can explain,” the ex-assassin started even though she doubted Maggie would believe anything she said.

“You can explain yourself in front of a judge,” Maggie said, taking her phone out of her pocket with the clear intention of calling her colleagues in blue. “I’m taking you in.”

“Please, Maggie, just listen-”

“No! You don’t get to ask me to listen,” Maggie interrupted, the defensive rage Alex had been working so hard to avoid making a new appearance on her voice.

“If you’re so determined on taking me in, why haven’t you done so already?” Alex asked, raising herself from the bed as much as the cuffs would allow so Maggie could see her, could look at her properly, could recognise the woman she had made love to the previous night in the face of a killer.

“Because I like you, Alex!” Maggie exclaimed in defeat, running one of her hands through her hair as Alex knew she did when she was distressed. “I really like you,” she whispered after a few seconds went by and the only thing they could hear was their own sharp intakes of breath.

In that moment it didn’t matter that Alex’s hands were starting to go numb or that her eyes were stinging with unshed tears or that her lungs were barely taking in enough air to keep her from passing out, because Maggie had just confirmed the impossible, because Maggie liked her back, because Maggie cared enough for her to go against everything she stood for and, for a couple of seconds, Alex had _hope_. Hope that Maggie had enough faith in her partner to hear her out, hope that Maggie would forgive her, hope that Maggie’s eyes would take back their usual brightness and Alex would get to see her smile once more.

However, just as soon as it invaded her, the feeling of light-headedness and invincibility abandoned her, leaving her imprisoned between the wall that were her own feelings and the sword that were Maggie’s, since she had never seen the woman she had grown to love so vulnerable, so exposed.

To be honest, Alex had never seen Maggie so sad either.

With her vision blurry, Alex watched as Maggie let herself fall down on a chair standing next to her bed, defeated. She watched as big brown eyes got welled up with tears their owner couldn’t quite push back until she was forced to wipe them away from her cheeks. Everything was falling apart and all Alex could do was watch as the love of her life pointed a gun at her.

For the briefest of moments, Alex actually wished Maggie’s finger would slip and accidently hit the trigger, before she was reminded of how much more pain the detective would have to be put through, before she reminded herself of how much there was still to do to ensure Maggie’s safety once she was gone.

“I like you back, you know?” Alex whispered after a while, once Maggie’s crying had subsided and she was sure the other woman would be able to hear her. “I love you,” she said even quieter than before, suddenly invaded by a need to make sure Maggie knew how much she meant to her, a need that screamed at her this was the sort of thing you don’t leave unsaid when you’re unsure of your future.

“I didn’t know assassins were capable of feeling love,” Maggie scoffed, wiping the last of her tears away to reveal a stoic expression that cut deeper into Alex than any knife ever could.

Regardless of how the barely functioning rational part of her told her Maggie’s bitterness was nothing besides a defence mechanism, Alex felt the urge to assure there was more to her than the murderous monster Maggie had been hunting all those years; felt the need to remind her of all the evenings they had spent together, of all the time during those past two weeks where Alex had had her back, not because she was obligated to do so, but because she honestly wanted to; Alex felt the necessity to make Maggie remember how much good they had done by each other’s sides, how much good they could still do.

Maggie’s hardened gaze brought Alex back to that night on the bridge, where the detective had held the same look on those brown eyes Alex would grow to love so much. She realized that until then, the coldness and harshness currently being directing at her had only been used on the killer version of her, not the colleague, not the friend, not the lover.

As her heart hammered painfully against her chest, Alex found she desperately wanted Maggie to believe the assassin was merely someone she could be, not who she was. However, even she was beginning to question where the assassin ended and Alex began.

And so, maybe it was wrong to say what she said next, maybe it was unfair to say what she said next, but the last thing Alex wanted was for Maggie to think what happened between them had been part of some grand scheme related to her side job; the mere prospect of the detective not believing Alex’s love for her was true was unconceivable, at best.

“You know me, Maggie. What I feel for you was real, you and I were real, last night was real,” Alex said and if her voice sounded too desperate, if she spoke a bit too fast and gave Maggie every single tool she needed to destroy her, she didn’t care. No matter how much a part of Alex begged her not to allow Maggie to acknowledge just how deeply she adored her, afraid her feelings would betray her and be used as a weapon, she didn’t care. Because she would never allow her love for Maggie to be turned into one of her weaknesses; because Maggie would never be her kryptonite; because Maggie was her greatest strength.

“Too bad they don’t let cops date killers,” Maggie bitterly remarked, her eyes clouded with something Alex wasn’t sure to be hopelessness or heartache, causing the woman lying on her bed to wonder just how much she wanted to believe what she had been told, wanted to believe she was loved.

 “I don’t do that anymore,” Alex stated, wishing she could wipe away the lonely tear sliding down Maggie’s cheek and prove to her just how much she had changed.

“No?” Maggie questioned ironically, her brows rising as she dared Alex to go against her. “You’re telling me this wasn’t you?” the detective defied, holding up a casefile from the first murder they had worked on together, from one of Alex’s last victims.

“Maggie, please let me explain, we’re running out of time,” Alex begged once her eyes found the alarm clock on the bedside table, the numbers 8:45 glowing in their underappreciated red glory, reminding the assassin of Lena’s meeting with Lillian Luthor, of how much there was still left to do. For a moment, Alex was able to push aside how things between her and Maggie weren’t supposed to end this way, how much she wanted the woman she loved to have an untainted image of Alex she could hold onto, how she wished she had never gotten to see the betrayal on Maggie’s eyes. After all, if she didn’t get to that meeting in time, all she had put herself through had been for nothing, Maggie would still end up dead.

Alex didn’t know if it was due to the tangible urgency on her voice, or to the tiniest bit of faith Maggie still had in her, but that time, the detective didn’t stop her from speaking. And so Alex was finally able to tell her what she had wanted to all those times she had been forced to lie. She was able to tell her about how she had been hired by Lillian Luthor to kill her; how she didn’t think Maggie deserved a bullet to the head and chose to get to know her instead, chose to try to save her; how she had fallen for her in the process; how much there was still left to do to ensure her safety and how that involved giving herself up to the authorities.

By the time she was done talking, Alex’s hair was wet with tears that insisted on falling as she gasped for air and stumbled on her words. Despite how hard it had been to tell Maggie the truth, Alex had never felt as light as she did then, without the weight of all the lies she carried on her shoulders and, for the briefest of moments, a tingling warmth settled on her chest.

Looking up at Maggie, Alex found soft eyes staring back at her, glimpses of lingering touches and nervous smiles reflected on caring brown orbs. Even as she sighed sadly, Maggie lowered the gun from Alex’s head to her chest, her eyes searching the room for something, anything that could distract her from the woman in front of her, from how she was looking at her like Maggie deserved the world.

“Why should I believe you?” Maggie asked, once she had found the courage to look back down at Alex, to look back down at the woman she was supposed to hate, but couldn’t. Although her tone was defensive and her arms were protectively crossed over her chest, Alex knew Maggie was desperately trying to let herself believe what Alex told her was the truth.

“Because deep down you already do,” Alex said, longing to cover Maggie’s hands with her own, to take her arms away from her chest and hold her, to tell her everything would be okay, because she was right there, because she would guarantee her safety, no matter the cost. “I’m the same person who bandaged your hand and tried to teach you how to play pool,” Alex continued, smiling softly as the memories came back to her, smiling sadly as she realised they wouldn’t get to make new ones. “I’m the same woman who cried in your arms because I knew I didn’t deserve you and was so scared of what you would do once you found that out,” she finished, wishing she could go back in time to the safety of Maggie’s embrace and stay there for all eternity. “I really do love you,” she added as an afterthought, “And I really am so sorry.”

The silence that followed Alex’s apology seemed to drag itself through time, allowing her to be aware of every little sound in her surroundings, from the rain falling outside and hitting the windows in its ever so comforting way, to the quiet whimper that left Maggie’s throat.

“You killed so many people, Alex,” Maggie whispered as she shook her head absentmindedly and dropped her gaze to the floor, giving Alex the perfect opportunity to free herself from the restraints bounding her to the headboard of Maggie’s bed. “It’s my duty to bring you in,” she continued before she looked back at Alex and her words died in her throat as her heart started racing.

“It’s okay,” Alex reassured as Maggie’s gaze darted between her eyes and her now free hands, her chest tightening at the way Maggie’s eyes were suddenly crossed by something similar to fear and her gun was immediately raised. “I’d never hurt you, I promise.”

“Stay where you are,” Maggie warned before getting up and putting some distance between them, the noise of the rain falling smoothing the sharp edge of her words.

“I can’t, Maggie,” Alex spoke softly, choosing her words carefully as not to spook Maggie even further as she sat up. “If I don’t leave now I won’t make it to the meeting, Lillian Luthor will go free and you’ll be in danger,” she said as she tried her best to keep her voice neutral, to not let it show just how much she wanted to stay, how terrified she was of saying goodbye, how much it would hurt to do so. Alex looked Maggie up and down several times, attempting to commit to memory every single detail of that exact moment, trying to convince herself it didn’t matter if this was the last time she saw the woman she loved in person as long as she had a perfect image of her safely guarded in the depths of her mind.

Getting up from the bed and letting the white sheets covering her body fall on the floor, leaving her bare, Alex slowly walked towards Maggie with a single tear running down her cheek until the detective’s gun was pressed against her heart.

“You have to let me go so I can do this one last thing for you, okay?” Alex asked, fighting the urge to push a few strands of hair behind Maggie’s ear, to hold her hand and kiss her forehead one last time. The cold metal of the gun pressed itself further into Alex’s skin as she stepped closer to Maggie, desperate to eliminate the tiniest of distance between them and feel her warmth one last time.

“You know I can’t do that, Alex,” Maggie denied, her voice raspy from crying and her jaw clenched, before pushing Alex back with the little energy she had left and raising her gun with as much purpose as one could muster when the person they loved was on the other side of the weapon.

And from all the times Alex imagined what losing Maggie would be like, she never thought it would be quiet like that. She expected tears and shaky intakes of breath; she expected heart-shattering pain and desperation; she expected all of that from herself, not Maggie. And so, as much as it hurt to put a couple of feet between them, to step out of reach, Alex allowed Maggie to push her away, thinking she got, at least, to feel the detective’s hand on her shoulder, to revel in the warmth and smoothness of her skin one last time.

Standing in the middle of Maggie’s bedroom with her knees backing into the edge of the bed and her body shivering from the coldness of the air, Alex couldn’t help but keep her eyes trained on her partner, hoping her gaze could convey how she understood what she had to do, how she didn’t blame her. She also hoped it could show Maggie she had no other choice but to do what she was about to.

Smiling sadly as Maggie kicked her previously messily discarded clothes in her direction, Alex got dressed as fast as she could, knowing she had little time to waste before the detective called for back-up. Just as Maggie was reaching for her phone, Alex took a deep breath and stepped closer to her, hoping to get the gun out of the way before it could fire.

Unfortunately, Maggie’s instincts got her to pull the trigger before Alex could knock the weapon onto the floor, causing a loud bang to resonate on both women’s ears and Alex’s left hand to rush to her right shoulder, as blood tainted her fingers and started falling on the wooden floor. Looking back at Maggie as she bit back a hiss, Alex found worried eyes fixated on hers, eyes who were starting to well up with tears even as their owner’s hands closed themselves into fists and her body assumed a fighting stance.

“It’s fine, it’s just a graze,” Alex said, hoping to assure Maggie that she did nothing wrong, to wash away the guilt that had found its way into Maggie’s features. The retired assassin tried to push the pain of the gunshot wound to the back of her mind as she applied pressure to the wound, attempting to think solely of the reason she had to leave, of the fact Maggie wouldn’t be safe as long as Lillian Luthor remained free, of how, if there was a way for trained killers to find redemption, this was it.

And so Alex bit back tears and sobs and screams once Maggie attempted to subdue her, allowing the woman she loved to do what she felt obligated to, letting the detective land a serious number of punches, blocking the attacks which could actually compromise her position and staying true to her promise, never once making a move to strike back.

It all happened faster than Alex expected and soon she had Maggie backed against a wall, knuckles bruised from the blows she delivered to the assassin’s jaw, her chest rising and falling in a quick motion as her eyes shone brighter than usual, reflecting the conflict between what was Maggie’s duty and what was her will.

“Don’t fight me, please” Alex requested, breathing heavily, while a drop of blood made its way down her chin and she pushed her left forearm into Maggie’s chest in order to keep her from moving. “I’m so tired of fighting,” she admitted quietly, weakly not caring about how fragile she sounded, before painfully lifting her hand to Maggie’s face and brushing away a strand of hair falling over her eyes.

Momentarily forgetting about how little time she had left, Alex stared into Maggie’s eyes until they were all she could see, until the painful throbbing on her shoulder faded and tears started falling down her cheeks.

“I have to go now,” Alex whispered, nodding as if to convince herself of what she was saying, running her hand through Maggie’s hair and removing her arm from the detective’s chest, pressing her lips to her forehead one last time and taking in the scent of _home_.

Walking away from Maggie, battered and bruised, while she could still feel her skin beneath her fingertips, could still smell the lingering scent of her perfume, was the hardest thing Alex ever did. Not because Maggie cried as she did so and her sobs would forever be engraved in Alex’s memory, nor because Maggie grabbed her hand in a last minute attempt to get her to stay before the distance became too great and they were forced apart, but because Maggie was the best part of her and leaving her behind felt like giving up on the only good thing she ever had.

If Alex was being honest with herself, walking away from Maggie felt as if someone was ripping her in half, taking her apart piece by piece until there was nothing left.

It made Alex want to scream.

It made her want to see the world burn.

It was only once she turned around that Alex allowed herself to break, that she welcomed the devastation and let herself tremble with the thought she would never get to see Maggie’s dimpled smile again, would never get to feel her lips curl into a smirk beneath her own.

A quiet “Alex” sounded behind her, making it harder to keep walking further and further away. Alex ignored the agony in that one word, ignored the way she would now remember her name falling out of Maggie’s lips as it if was some terrible thing. Instead she kept on walking until she reached the living room, knowing she wouldn’t be able to keep going if she turned back.

“I don’t want to lose you, Al,” Maggie whispered, suddenly in front of her, as she grabbed Alex’s hand oh so tightly. “I’m not ready to lose you,” the detective said even quieter than before, her thumb coming up to brush away the tears on Alex’s cheek. Covering Maggie’s hand with her own, Alex leaned into her touch and tried not to think of what her words meant, tried not to find a reason to stay.

“You will never lose me,” Alex said as she brought Maggie into her arms and held her soundly, breathing in her scent once more, taking in everything that was Maggie Sawyer as she rubbed soothing patterns on the small of the detective’s back and drowned her sobs on the crook of her neck. “I will always be with you,” Alex promised, unwillingly stepping back from the embrace.

Before she could say anything else, Maggie’s lips were on hers, angry and desperate, as she pulled Alex closer by the back of her neck and ran her fingers through the assassin’s short hair, letting her taste her own blood on Maggie’s tongue, until the need for air became too great to be ignored. With her eyes still closed, Alex rested her forehead against Maggie’s, savouring those last few seconds of what could have been heaven.

Looking down at her bruised wrists, Alex noticed she was still wearing her father’s watch. Blurs of red covered it partially, making it impossible to make out the constellation underneath the crystal, to fully see the dark blue sky it held as background.

“This is not goodbye,” Alex murmured, more to herself than Maggie, as she took off her father’s watch and carefully placed it on Maggie’s open palm, closing the detective’s hand around it protectively before kissing her knuckles. “Hold onto this for me, okay?”

The last thing she saw before she turned around with new found determination were Maggie’s tears falling down on the watch, washing away some of the blood that covered it as the detective’s eager fingertips ran over the leather straps. For a moment, Alex thought she might have seen her father’s favourite constellation, not on the background of his watch, but on Maggie’s eyes and the world felt a little bit more _right_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soooo as I'm really unsure about how I chose to develop this part of the story, I'd appreciate to know what you guys thought and whether or not you'd like for supercorp to have a couple of moments in next chapter

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading, comments are very much appreciated  
> I'm on tumblr at [@we-are-just-bad-code](http://we-are-just-bad-code.tumblr.com/)


End file.
